The scale and frequency of DDoS attacks have escalated dramatically. In a recent webinar, our CEO Carl Herberger explored the evolving threat landscape, highlighting key insights from 2024, the regulatory challenges businesses face, and the critical priorities for mitigating attacks as we prepare for the year ahead.
Noise vs. Reality: Identifying Real DDoS Threats
It’s easy to lose sight of genuine threats when every month brings claims of “the largest DDoS attack ever.” Carl identified an important trend: headline-making attacks often target cloud providers like Azure, AWS, and Cloudflare. For most organizations, these enormous attacks are “more smoke than fire.”
The real concern? Smaller, targeted attacks that go unnoticed. Of particular note were:
- Non-volume-based attacks targeting VPN infrastructures worldwide.
- The lack of visibility many organizations have into these “silent fires.”
To combat this, companies must prioritize visibility—understanding traffic patterns and threats in real time—while focusing on attacks most relevant to their environments.
Regulatory Complexity: Navigating Compliance and Availability
Evolving laws, such as the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), introduce new compliance demands, especially for critical infrastructure. Carl highlighted two challenges:
- Data sovereignty requirements: Organizations must know where DDoS scrubbing occurs to avoid violating regional laws.
- Routing issues: Geopolitical events, such as undersea cable disruptions, are complicating traffic flows.
This regulatory shift requires organizations to rethink their DDoS defense architectures—balancing cloud, on-premises, and hybrid solutions to ensure compliance and uptime.
Key Takeaways: Preparing for 2025
Despite efforts like Interpol’s recent takedown of DDoS-for-hire platforms, the threat persists. Carl outlined three priorities for organizations in 2025:
- Optics: Organizations need better visibility into their traffic to identify threats early.
- Assessments: Build resilience by eliminating single points of failure in networks, vendors, and authentication systems.
- Testing: Regularly test your DDoS defenses to ensure they are ready for today’s rapidly evolving threats.
As Carl pointed out, “Availability is the life support of businesses.” Businesses cannot afford to treat DDoS protection lightly robust, redundant solutions are critical for maintaining uptime and protecting revenue. Carl closed with this simple framework: OAT—Optics, Assessments, Testing. Businesses that prioritize visibility, redundancy, and proactive testing will be best positioned to navigate the turbulent DDoS landscape of 2025.
