Dive Brief:

• More than half of DDoS attacks result in additional compromises on a network, according to new research from information services and analytics firm Neustar.
• Researchers found DDoS attacks are increasingly used as "smokescreens" to allow cybercriminals to launch other types of attacks, according to the study.
• The majority (77%) of the more than 1,000 respondents indicated they had suffered a DDoS attack. Of those that had experiences an attack, more than half said they also experienced an additional compromise such as a virus (48%), malware (37%) or ransomware (16%).​

Dive Insight:

"Distributed denial-of-service attacks are no longer isolated events limited to large, highly visible, targets," said Rob Ayoub, security products research director at IDC, in an announcement. "Sophisticated attacks hit companies of all sizes, in all industries."

Last month French hosting firm OVH was hit with two concurrent DDoS attacks attributed to botnets made up of compromised IoT devices. The botnet comprised 145,607 hacked digital video recorders and IP cameras. During the incident, one of the two DDoS attacks peaked at 799Gbps, making it the largest DDoS attack ever reported.

Once attackers work to take down a network as a way of distraction, they can conduct another attack that could result in a ransom. In turn, companies would have to pay to get the network back online and services running again. 

In response to these expensive, time-consuming attacks, three-quarts of respondents saidthey are investing more in DDoS protection this year than they did last year.