Cybersecurity is one of the main challenges with current business continuity and disaster recovery strategies. Distributed-Denial-of-Service attacks in particular test modern BC/DR initiatives, causing prolonged periods of downtime that make it difficult for organizations to restore operations.
In 2014, DDoS attacks experienced a successful year, according to a recent SmartData Collective report by Kelvin Smith. The writer noted companies worldwide came under fire from these threats, including Sony Entertainment and Sony PlayStation.
If some of the world's largest conglomerates can experience DDoS attacks, then smaller organizations with limited resources can surely fall victim as well.
What can be done to stop DDoS?
DDoS attacks may not result in the theft of sensitive data, but they can still be a nuisance, especially for businesses heavily reliant on the Internet to conduct operations. Smith suggested firms can invest in more bandwidth to minimize clogged server traffic. However, this may be an expensive proposition.
"DDoS attacks are difficult to stop, which why they are so successful."
A distributed data movement strategy may prove more effective.
"Appoint different data centers that respond to requests in slices instead of a single server. Today, it is easy to manage data centers as those can be applied on cloud that leads to reduction of load and distributes it from across servers instead of a single server," Smith suggested.
Server mirroring is another way to combat DDoS attacks. Smith wrote this strategy copies items from the main server, using the mirrors to alleviate traffic congestion and, hopefully, prevent the threat from succeeding.
Bring in some outside eyes
In addition to keeping IT infrastructures safe from natural disasters, power outages and human errors, DDoS and cybersecurity attacks cannot be overlooked with current BC/DR initiatives. Focusing on all of these incidents at once, however, can be difficult, especially for companies with limited resources.
Third-party recovery specialists make great partners, helping clients shore up their IT systems, implement the best possible data backups, outline cohesive response plans and address any security vulnerabilities that may make it easy for malicious cybercriminals to negatively impact operational efficiency.
With DDoS attacks showing no signs of dissipating, the time is now for organizations to make sure their BC/DR strategies account for these threats. Every hour or day servers cannot function means companies are losing money. Recovery specialists are available now to help businesses prepare for any situation.