Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 08 | Page 17

TRENDING T he cost of internet downtime was one of the survey questions addressed to enterprise, government and education organisations in Arbor Networks’ latest Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents estimate the costs to their organisation above $500 per minute, with 7% indicating more than $10,000 per minute. What’s even more interesting is that a number of respondents elected not to answer this question. Why? They had no idea how much a minute of downtime would cost their organisation. In short, there’s real money at stake here. Even if an attack just lasts for a few minutes, it will likely cost thousands of dollars if not mitigated. If it lasts longer (or if there are many small attacks), the consequences can be huge. Here are some other data points from the report that will provide a sense of how much these attacks can cost: Likelihood of an attack in 2015: DDoS was the most common threat experienced by enterprise, government and education respondents, similar to earlier years. Thirty-four percent of respondents reported that their organisation experienced one or more DDoS attacks over the past 12 months. (The odds have since gone up, as we’ll see momentarily.) Time required to mitigate: Fifteen percent of respondents indicated that they can immediately mitigate an attack OVER ONE-QUARTER OF RESPONDENTS WHO EXPERIENCED AN ATTACK INDICATE THEY SUFFERED MORE THAN TEN ATTACKS PER MONTH www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 17