[March 28, 2013]

Denial of Service Attacks Surge and Expose Enterprise Infrastructure Vulnerabilities and New Needs, IDC Says

Lurking in the shadows for nearly a decade, denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are making a resurgence. Several high-profile assaults on the world's leading financial firms and other industries have recently been experienced. And attacks are increasing in frequency, data volumes and application specificity.

According to new research from International Data Corporation (IDC), these attacks render servers and/or network resources unavailable by overwhelming them with traffic. The evolution from hacktivism to financial gain to disguising more targeted attacks is evidence of a re-emerging trend that exploits the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of some of the world's largest and most powerful organizations.

In 2012, there was a sharp increase in the frequency, bandwidth volume, and applications orientation of these attacks. "As these attacks surged in prevalence and sophistication, organizations were often caught unaware. Embedded capabilities were quickly overwhelmed and outages were readily apparent on the Web. This is driving the need for proactive solutions to protect customer's infrastructure from current and future attacks," said Christian A. Christiansen, Vice President, Security Products & Services research at IDC (News - Alert). As detailed in the IDC forecast, the worldwide market for DDoS prevention solutions (including products and services)will grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.2% from 2012 through 2017 and reach $870 million.

Volumetric attacks will remain the predominant type of DDoS attacks throughout the forecast period. These simple yet devastating attacks are exceedingly effective due to the relative ease with which botnets can send a bandwidth flood that can cripple most enterprise infrastructures. Despite volumetric-based attacks remaining most popular, more advanced hybrid attacks that include application layer and encrypted traffic will grow. This will drive growth in the on-premise equipment market throughout the forecast period. "With the number of high-profile attacks steadily increasing, the market for DDoS prevention solutions will surge," said John Grady, Research Manager for IDC's Security Products program. "A defense-in-depth posture with a combination of on-premise equipment and cloud-based mitigation provides the best protection against advanced application and SSL-based attacks as well as large-scale volumetric attacks."

Additional findings from IDC's research include:

• Expansion of cloud services and mobile networks creates additional targets for DDoS attacks.
• Providers of anti-DDoS products and services continue to expand partnering relationships to address the evolving nature of attacks.
• Firewalls, intrusion protection, and other devices may mitigate very low-level attacks, but large volumetric attacks easily overwhelm their capabilities and the security devices can become the attackers' unwilling allies because they are unable to separate legitimate for illegitimate traffic.
• Customers increasingly embrace services and product-based solutions, but larger enterprises will adopt a hybrid solution that combines these solutions.

The IDC study, Worldwide DDoS Prevention Products and Services 2013-2017 Forecast (IDC #239954) examines the DDoS prevention products and services market. It provides a market size for 2011 and 2012 and a forecast for 2013-2017 segmented by products and services.

To purchase this study, please contact IDC Sales at 508-988-7988 or [email protected]

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 49 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]