The financial sector has experienced a significant rise in cybercrime activity over the past few years as the following stats from the UK COVID CRIME INDEX 2021 REPORT show.
And it’s not surprising to understand why. Cybercrime is now the biggest economic threat in the global economy – it’s cheap and easy to carry out and really hard to catch the people doing it. Couple that with remote working and a post pandemic business model for many that is tied to online trade, and you have the perfect storm.
As we have repeatedly said in the Centre, the single most common reason for committing a cyber attack is to make money. DDoS attacks interrupt business operations, result in significant financial losses for the victim, and pose a substantial danger to financial institutions. According to Akamai, DDoS attacks against the financial services industry increased by 93 percent between 2018 and 2020, demonstrating that criminals always have the option of causing disruptions in critical systems, services, and applications required for daily operations.
A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, website, or network by overwhelming it with a flood of Internet traffic.
DDoS attacks frequently come from multiple sources to make their identification more difficult. It can also hinder the victim organization’s attempts to stop the DDoS.
In lay terms it’s like an unexpected traffic jam clogging up the highway, preventing regular traffic from arriving at its destination.
DDoS normally present themselves, as you would expect, by a slowing or crashing of a company’s network or website. Which costs you time, reputation and money and potentially drives your customers to competitors websites.
DDoS attacks are notoriously difficult to prevent. The attackers don’t necessarily need internal access to the network as the attack is from the outside. They are increasing in complexity and sophistication meaning that defense against these dark arts needs continual review. But the key points for protection to remember are:-
The impact of a successful attack against your website or network can be catastrophic and lead to website downtime, loss of business and loss of reputation. In the worst cases it can lead to the closure of the business altogether. But all is not lost.
Here at the centre, we would advise you to do three things now:-
Reporting a live cyber-attack 24/7 If you are a business, charity or other organisation which is currently suffering a live cyber-attack (in progress), please call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 immediately. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Reporting a cyber-attack which isn't ongoing
Please report online to ,Action Fraud, the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. You can report cybercrime online at any time using the online reporting tool, which will guide you through simple questions to identify what has happened. Action Fraud advisors can also provide the help, support, and advice you need.
Alternatively, you can call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 (textphone 0300 123 2050).
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