Global DNS Threat Survey Report From EfficientIP Estimates DNS-Based Attacks Cost Businesses More Than $2M Annually

West Chester, PA (PRWEB UK)27 June 2017 - EfficientIP, a leading provider of network services, today announced the results of its 2017 Global DNS Threat Survey Report. It explored the technical and behavioral causes for the rise in DNS threats and their potential effects on businesses across the world. Major issues highlighted by the study in its third year, include a lack of awareness of the variety of attacks; a failure to adapt security solutions to protect DNS and poor responses to vulnerability notifications. These concerns will not only be subject to regulatory changes, but also create a higher risk of data loss, downtime or compromised public image.

According to the report, 94 percent of respondents claim DNS security is critical for business. Yet, 76 percent of organizations have been subjected to a DNS attack in last 12 months with 28 percent suffering data theft. The Global DNS Threat Survey Report also estimates the yearly average costs of the damages to be $2.236 million (for organizations with 3,000+ employees). The leading causes in the U.S. were Malware (56%), DDoS (41%), DNS Tunnelling (42%), False Positive Triggering Phishing (40%) Cache Poisoning (34%) and Lock-up Domain Attacks (38%). NX Domain Attacks, DNS Water Torture Attacks and Zero-Day Exploits were in the bottom quarter. These numbers differed slightly globally but Malware remained the number one across regions.

“Every hack goes through the DNS and this study once again reveals that despite the evolving threat landscape organizations across the globe and their IT departments still don’t fully appreciate the risks,” said David Williamson, CEO at EfficientIP. “In less than a year, GDPR will come into effect, so businesses really need to start rethinking their security in order to better manage threats and save themselves from hefty fines down the road.”

Globally, the results varied widely. Thirty nine percent (39%) of respondents from the US and UK demonstrated more awareness of the top five DNS-based attacks than Spain (38%), Australia (36%), Germany (32%) and France (27%), but less than India (50%) and Singapore (47%).

Key U.S. findings include:
A significant amount of U.S. businesses (80%) stated they were a victim of a DNS attack in the last year. With the range being between 11 and 15 separate attacks in the last 12 months.

For 43% of those who experienced a DNS attack, it took more than six hours, almost a full business day to mitigate it, requiring more than four members of staff in 29% of cases which for many organizations may be their entire network security team.

A quarter (25%) of organizations surveyed experienced Data Exfiltration via DNS. Of those, theft of sensitive customer information (14%) and intellectual property (11%) was reported.

By taking the measure of closing down affected applications to mitigate an attack, one third of organisations achieved what the attacker intended to do.

Fifteen percent (15%) reported actual losses between $500K range to more than $5million.

DDoS volumetric attacks remain on the rise. Almost half of respondents (46%) reported attacks in the 1Gbit/second - 5Gbit/second. Over one quarter (28%) reported attacks in the 5-10 Gbit/second range and a shocking 11% reported attacks upwards or 10Gbit/second, some that even hit in the 50 Gbit/second range.

Most worryingly, many believe they are protected, but they are not. Almost all organizations (98%) did not apply the necessary security patches (compared to 83% globally) and only 86 percent applied half of the required patches on their DNS servers.

Recommendations from the report
The following steps can be taken by organizations to ensure continuity of service and data protection for them, their users and clients:

Replace useless firewall and load balancers with purpose-built DNS security technology
Keep their DNS security up to date by patching DNS servers more often
Enhance their threat visibility by using deep DNS transaction analysis

The 2017 Global DNS Threat Survey report
The report was conducted by Coleman Parkes from February to March 2017. The results are based on 1,000 respondents in three regions - North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Respondents included CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, IT Managers, Security Managers and Network Managers.

To read the full report please visit: http://www.efficientip.com/resources/white-paper-dns-security-survey-2017/

About EfficientIP
As one of the world’s fastest growing DDI vendors, EfficientIP helps organisations drive business efficiency through agile, secure and reliable network infrastructures. Its unified management framework for DNS-DHCP-IPAM (DDI) and network configurations ensures end-to-end visibility, consistency control and advanced automation. Additionally, its unique 360° DNS security solution protects data confidentiality and application access from anywhere at any time. Companies rely on EfficientIP to help control the risks and reduce the complexity of challenges they face with modern key IT initiatives such as cloud applications, virtualization, and mobility.

Institutions across a variety of industries and government sectors worldwide depend on its offerings to assure business continuity, reduce operating costs and increase the management efficiency of their network and security teams. For further information, please visit: http://www.efficientip.com