Trends in the Cost of Web Application and Denial of Service Attacks
Cybersecurity is the discipline of protecting computer systems against theft of information, damage of hardware, software, or data, and the disruption of services through denial-of-service attacks or the misdirection of services through botnets. The field of cybersecurity is rapidly growing in importance as the world increasingly relies on the Internet and wireless networks, computer systems, smart devices, and the many other devices that make up the Internet of Things.
This whitepaper deals with two specific aspects of cybersecurity: web application security and denial of service (DoS) attacks. Web applications, or web apps, are a type of computer program running on the client-server model where the client runs in a web browser. Denial of service attacks is a type of cyber-attack where the attacker tries to make a resource unavailable to the people who are trying to access it by disrupting the services of a host connected to the Internet.
The whitepaper explores the extraordinary costs of web application attacks and DoS attacks. Research has found that web application attacks are costlier for the company as it will usually spend “much more on technical support and incident response activities when they faced a web application attack than when they faced a DoS attack.” However, “in the case of DoS attacks, revenue losses are the worst financial consequence because customer-facing services are not available.”
The activities of real companies in light of these attacks and threats are explored. Companies’ perspectives on how to deal with safeguarding web applications, whether their web application firewall is effective, and the cost of cyber-attacks. Companies are asked what controls they have in place to protect their web infrastructure as well the reasons many web applications remain untested.
The whitepaper further goes into great detail into other security-related matters that companies face. With over twenty survey questions and answers, complete with charts this whitepaper is the most comprehensive resource on how companies today are addressing security vulnerabilities.
