Concerned Saudi IT Decision-Makers Highlight Growing Scale and Impact of DDoS Attacks

Leading Saudi IT decision-makers have highlighted how distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are fast becoming one of the main business security risks in the Kingdom.

In a new survey commissioned by F5 Networks,84% agreed that DDoS attacks can have a strong adverse impact on business.

56% of those respondents singled out data and revenue loss as the main concerns whereas 55% cited a related decline in productivity.

According to the survey, 40% of the Saudi IT decision makers have endured a DDoS attack. 34% claimed normalcy after a few days, 36% after a week and 20% after a few weeks. 10% said it took up to a month to get back to business as usual.

45% put the estimated cost of recovery at between US$ 3 to 5 million, 30% between US$ 5 to 10 million, and 16% between $US 10 to 20 million. 2% said the damage was as high as $US 20 to 30 million.

The survey also highlighted the need for greater industry-wide awareness. Only 18% said they could “very accurately” describe the difference between a Layer 3 (network protocol) and Layer 7 (application layer) attacks.