MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. The number of DDoS attacks on Russian companies has doubled in a year, according to a study by Russian anti-virus software developer Kaspersky Lab.
In 2017, every third Russian company (36%) underwent a DDoS attack at least once, while in 2016 the percentage of such companies was only 17%.
Kaspersky Lab conducted the Business Information Security study in cooperation with B2B International. More than 5,200 IT professionals from 29 countries around the world, including Russia, took part in it.
The report notes that the company of any size may be attacked.
Microenterprises accounted for 37% of all targets of DDoS attacks, small and medium companies accounted for 31% and the share of large corporations was 39%.
"In this case, the consequences are in many cases very serious: one out of every five victims (21%) admitted that the attack resulted in a significant decline in the company's services, and 8% of the respondents had a transaction and process failure," the report said.
A DDoS attack can hide something more serious. Every third attacked company noted that the DDoS attack served as a "smokescreen" for other cybercrimes.
For example, DDoS-attack could "cover" the leakage or theft of data, hacking of the corporate network, infection by malware or direct theft of money.
"The risk of undergoing DDoS continues to grow, and so far there is no indication that the trend will change in the near future. Attacks are becoming larger and more complex, and are increasingly being used by cybercriminals only as a cover for other operations," Alexey Kiselev DDoS Protection project manager at the Kaspesrky Lab.
"What is relevant for any company now is not the question whether it will be attacked or not, it is rather when exactly this will happen," he added, stressing the importance of protecting IT infrastructure from such attacks.