Small businesses are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks, which can cause serious disruptions to daily routines and significant financial losses. One of the most damaging types of attack is a denial-of-service attack, also known as a DoS attack. This type of attack is launched against a network or website in an attempt to overwhelm it with traffic, which can cause it to become unavailable for legitimate users. This can have a crippling effect on small businesses, as they often lack the resources to be able to prevent or mitigate such incidents effectively.

Denial-of-service attacks are becoming more and more frequent. Regardless of size, no business is safe. In fact, approximately 30,000 DoS attacks occur daily. What are the consequences if you fall victim to this growing threat, and how can you prevent downtime, data loss, and legal liability?

If a website or online service is unavailable due to a denial-of-service attack, customers may be unable to purchase products or services, resulting in lost revenue for the business. For small businesses, this type of attack can cost them over $120,000. For enterprise corporations, DoS attacks have risen to over $2 million in costs. This is quite expensive, considering it only costs hackers around $100 to $200 to launch a week-long attack. But financial loss isn’t the only concern among business owners.

Not only do denial-of-service attacks put businesses at risk of downtime, but they can also damage their reputation. If customers are unable to access services or find out information about products due to a DoS attack, then they may begin to look elsewhere for their needs. This could have long-term financial implications, as well as negative consequences for your brand’s reputation if customers see a website that’s broken or vulnerable to data breaches. In their mind, if they can’t trust your website, can they trust your company? Furthermore, if sensitive data is accessed during the attack, then this could put businesses in breach of GDPR regulations, which can result in further fines and reputational damage.

EBay, Yahoo!, Google, Amazon Web Services, Twitter, Spotify and many other well-known companies have faced DoS attacks and have fought to reclaim their reputation. It’s hard enough to recover for enterprise corporations. For small businesses, some never come back from this unfortunate data disaster.

Want to protect your reputation? Take the first step by requesting a Free IT Network Security Assessment from KDG

If the DoS attack causes a system to crash or become unstable, it can result in data corruption or loss. Systems may also not be able to save data or back up vital records.

Sometimes a DoS attack is a distraction from something much larger going on behind the scenes. While businesses scramble to address a denial-of-service attack, hackers are launching other attacks to steal sensitive data, like ransomware attacks, SQL injections, or MITM attacks.

The best way for small businesses to prevent a DoS attack is to invest in robust IT security measures. This includes ensuring that all systems are kept up to date with the latest security patches, as well as implementing firewalls and antivirus protection. It is also important to monitor web traffic for any suspicious activity and take action as soon as possible if anything unusual is detected. Other ways your organization can prevent a denial-of-service attack include:

• Load balancing: Distributing traffic across multiple servers or resources can help prevent overloading of a single server or resource.
• Educating employees: Educating employees on the risks and signs of a DoS attack can help prevent attacks from succeeding.
• Having disaster recovery plan: As the saying goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Having a response plan in place can help minimize the impact of a DoS attack if one does occur.

Having the right IT support team is also essential for small businesses to protect themselves against DoS attacks. KDG can provide a range of services, such as network monitoring and security audits, which can help identify any potential vulnerabilities before they are exploited by attackers.

For a limited time, we’re also offering a free IT network security assessments so we can help you pinpoint any vulnerabilities in your technology, data, or network.