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IT Professionals Fear Negative Customer Experience from DDoS Attacks, Survey Says

A new survey of IT professionals by Neustar shows that more than half of respondents fear a negative impact to customer experience from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

In a DDoS attack, hackers seek to shut down a company’s Web resources – typically websites, but also email servers - by unleashing extremely high volumes of malicious Internet traffic or surgically targeting Web applications.

A DDoS has the potential to cause lasting damage to customer service, online revenue streams and brand reputation.

Executed in Q1 2012, the survey covered IT professionals in more than 25 industries such as finance and banking, retail, telecommunications, travel and IT.

Notable findings include:

- More than 300 respondents reported they had been attacked

- The top concern was the impact attacks have on customer service – with 51 percent listing it as their greatest concern associated with the attacks

- 35 percent of those attacked said the attacks lasted more than 24 hours – with 11 percent of attacks lasting more than a week

- Specific to retailers, 67 percent who had experienced a DDoS attack pegged the costs of website outages at more $100,000 per hour – equating to loses of $2 million a day

“The potential negative implications of DDoS attacks can be devastating for both marketers and IT professionals,” said Alex Berry, senior vice president, Enterprise Services, Neustar. “Many companies have been hit hard - with consequences lasting far longer than the attacks themselves. It’s important that companies are proactive about protecting their online presence, as well as their customers, to ensure the constant delivery of online services and necessary brand vigilance.”

Overall, the survey shows that a significant number of companies face the risks of DDoS attacks, yet few have solutions designed specifically to combat attacks, with many relying solely on firewalls and intrusion detection systems.

Less than 5 percent of respondents have a purpose-built DDoS mitigation solution, for example, an on-premise DDoS mitigation appliance. This explains why so many attacks last days – in fact, 35 percent respondents experienced attacks that lasted more than 24 hours.

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IT Professionals Fear Negative Customer Experience from DDoS Attacks, Survey Says

A new survey of IT professionals by Neustar shows that more than half of respondents fear a negative impact to customer experience from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

In a DDoS attack, hackers seek to shut down a company’s Web resources – typically websites, but also email servers - by unleashing extremely high volumes of malicious Internet traffic or surgically targeting Web applications.

A DDoS has the potential to cause lasting damage to customer service, online revenue streams and brand reputation.

Executed in Q1 2012, the survey covered IT professionals in more than 25 industries such as finance and banking, retail, telecommunications, travel and IT.

Notable findings include:

- More than 300 respondents reported they had been attacked

- The top concern was the impact attacks have on customer service – with 51 percent listing it as their greatest concern associated with the attacks

- 35 percent of those attacked said the attacks lasted more than 24 hours – with 11 percent of attacks lasting more than a week

- Specific to retailers, 67 percent who had experienced a DDoS attack pegged the costs of website outages at more $100,000 per hour – equating to loses of $2 million a day

“The potential negative implications of DDoS attacks can be devastating for both marketers and IT professionals,” said Alex Berry, senior vice president, Enterprise Services, Neustar. “Many companies have been hit hard - with consequences lasting far longer than the attacks themselves. It’s important that companies are proactive about protecting their online presence, as well as their customers, to ensure the constant delivery of online services and necessary brand vigilance.”

Overall, the survey shows that a significant number of companies face the risks of DDoS attacks, yet few have solutions designed specifically to combat attacks, with many relying solely on firewalls and intrusion detection systems.

Less than 5 percent of respondents have a purpose-built DDoS mitigation solution, for example, an on-premise DDoS mitigation appliance. This explains why so many attacks last days – in fact, 35 percent respondents experienced attacks that lasted more than 24 hours.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
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In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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