The last quarter of the year is typically one of the most active quarters for DDoS attacks, warns Prolexic Technologies in its quarterly global DDoS attack report. Because DDoS perpetrators attempt to cause the most financial damage and disruption, the number of cyber attacks directed against e-Commerce websites tends to peak during the critical Q4 sales period.
The company has released a new DDoS infographic illustrating how retailers can protect their websites and safeguard revenues from cyber attacks this holiday season.
Prolexic’s infographic highlights four key warning signs that can indicate an e-Commerce attack is imminent. It also provides these recommendations for retailers to follow to help maximize website availability during the holiday shopping season:
- Closely monitor social media sites and blogs. Hackers love to brag about their exploits and sometimes announce which industry or company they plan to target next. In addition, inflammatory or controversial messages posted on your corporate websites and blogs could motivate hacktivist groups to target your website — or you could even become the victim of a disgruntled employee or customer.
- Don’t ignore an extortion or blackmail attempt, even if you don’t plan on paying the ransom. Alert IT and your DDoS mitigation service provider and take all threats seriously.
- Learn how different types of DDoS threats can affect different elements of your network and implement a DDoS mitigation service that will protect all of them.
- Keep up with trends in DDoS attack signatures and toolkits. Prolexic has a wealth of information and threat reports at prolexic.com.
“The emergence of easy-to-use DDoS toolkits makes it simple for malicious actors to launch DDoS attacks — using computers or even mobile apps,” said Stuart Scholly, president at Prolexic. “This makes it urgent that in Q4, all online retailers take the threat of DDoS attack seriously.”
