How much will a DDoS attack cost your small business?
In lost revenue and data, the cost of a DDoS attack on your tech business or your client’s business can escalate quickly. In fact, the average small to medium-sized business spends $120,000 per attack.
The direct costs of a DDoS attack
A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack overwhelms its target with a flood of traffic from malware-infected devices. It maxes out the capacity of the target host and blocks normal traffic to the host with a denial of service error.
Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) spend an average of $120,000 restoring service and managing operations during a DDoS attack.
If the business loses revenue or business opportunities due to the attack, or if the attack is a smokescreen for a data breach, businesses can lose much more. That's why investing in DDoS protection and other cybersecurity measures is so important for a small business.
Cost of restoring services
Because stopping a DDoS attack is no easy task, many businesses struggle to restore services.
Attacks can result in unusually slow network performance, and prevent website access or availability. A third of SMBs say the biggest burden during an attack is finding a way to restore services to employees, clients, or customers.
Cost of managing operations offline
DDoS attacks are becoming more sophisticated and taking longer to resolve, which means most businesses will need to manage without the target service for at least a work day. One in four SMBs say that the costs of an offline or back-up system to continue operations is their biggest expense during an attack.
DDoS consequences: lost revenue and missed business opportunities
While restoring services and managing operations offline are the most direct costs, the financial impact of DDoS attacks extends much further. In addition to IT recovery costs, a business can also end up spending more in sales, customer service, and marketing.
DDoS consequences can include significant lost revenue, particularly for online retailers. In general, small businesses lose between $8,000 to $74,000 for every hour of downtime.
An attack can also damage customer and client trust, and jeopardize future business opportunities.
Data breach costs
Cybercriminals often use DDoS attacks as a smokescreen for more dangerous cyberattacks. Hackers can overwhelm a business's servers with decoy traffic from a DDoS attack, and then steal data during the distraction.
If a small to medium-sized business suffers a data breach on top of a DDoS attack, the combined financial and reputational costs can be devastating.
Affected clients often sue to recoup costs
The high cost of DDoS attacks can prompt affected clients to file cyber liability lawsuits against your tech business. If you could have prevented the attack on the client, you may be on the hook for a hefty judgment.
And even if your business isn’t liable, you’ll still need to pay for your legal defense.
Your business can manage its risk with cyber liability insurance, which is included in most errors and omissions policies for tech businesses.
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