About 64% (two-thirds) of banks have suffered at least one Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in the last 12 months, according to a new research.
Ponemon Institute’s report, commissioned by Corero Network Security, revealed that poor technology, lack of personnel and insufficient budget allocation have been major obstacles in avoiding attacks.
The research revealed that about 48% of banks had been affected by multiple DDoS attacks during the period.
About 78% of security practitioners reported an expected increase of attacks for 2013.
Corero president Marty Meyer said it takes more than firewalls to protect against DDoS attacks. Banks and other organisations have a false sense of security when it comes to this.
"Many Organizations assume traditional firewalls can provide protection against DDoS and Zero-Day exploits at the perimeter, yet this is not what they were designed to do and therefore attacks are still getting through," Meyer said.
"Organizations need to add First Line of Defense solutions that can provide this protection and are able to remove all of the ‘noise’ at the perimeter before it hits the network so that firewalls and servers can optimally work on the functions they were originally designed for," he added.
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Hacktivist groups have targeted major US banks including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Capital One.
Ponemon Institute chairman and founder, Dr. Larry Ponemon, said that it really comes as no surprise that DDoS attacks are one of the most severe security risks cited by the banking industry. These results clearly demonstrate the level to which they are being targeted on a continued basis.
"When such an attack occurs, the time and efforts of IT staff are devoted to dealing with the problem instead of managing other IT operational and security priorities," Ponemon said.
"This leaves financial institutions open to more dangerous attacks that further compromise their infrastructure," he added.
