Contributed article by Marc Gaffan, Co-Founder, VP Marketing and Business Development, Incapsula

DDoS ups its game in 2014

As we hit the home stretch of 2013, we look forward to the next year and make predictions about what's to come. While you can never be certain what's lurking around the corner, often the best barometer of the future is the past. This is undoubtedly the case when it comes to cybercrime, which is more likely to evolve in 2014, if 2013 was any indication.

In 2013 we've seen the impact Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) can have on a business and organizations, from banks and government institutions to the media, all demonstrating the looming threat of cyber attacks. It should come as no surprise then when I say that in 2014 DDoS will continue to be the go-to method in a hacker's arsenal. Attackers will leverage DDoS even more, and the attacks will be much bigger and more sophisticated.

DDoS attacks used to top out at 30 Gbps. Today, hackers are launching attacks of unprecedented capacity, over 100Gbps in size. DDoS attacks are also morphing into surgical strikes targeting the application layer, disrupting transactions or access to databases. These subtle, calculated efforts transform previously unnoticed attacks into serious organization wide security risks. Small blips on the radar become major blips, and it's already too late. In 2014 we will see DDoS attacks continue to increase in sophistication and intensity.

Hacking and the sophisticated technology behind it has become a financial industry in its own right. The growth of this industry coincides with the increased use of cutting-edge tools that are now available for sale in the mass underground market. Some of the tools we expect to see more of in 2014 are Trojans being leveraged for DDoS as well as headless browsers. Trojans, which infect innocent people's PC by clicking on a link or downloading a program, like a "Trojan horse," can be used to herd thousands of computers into a DDoS botnet. A headless browser is actually invisible with no address bar, or menus and programmatically operated by stealthy attackers. These attacks are able to fly under the radar as impersonators cause downtime and compromise information within your network.

The market is a product of competition and we expect to see even more of this next year as organizations increasingly use cybercrime to take out competitors.

Whatever the reason, whether attacks are politically motivated, a competitive tactic, or a revenge vendetta, it's clear that hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Hacker collectives are organizing forces and coordinating on a global scale more than ever before. As the weapon of choice for online attacks, DDoS is likely to hit the cyber landscape with enhanced power, whether organizations are ready or not.

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About the Author 

Mr. Marc Gaffan has over 15 years of R&D, Product Management & Marketing experience in high-tech companies.  Prior to founding Incapsula, Marc was Director of Product Marketing at RSA, EMC's security division, responsible for strategy and go to market activities of a $500M IT Security product portfolio.  Before that, Marc was the Director of Marketing for the Consumer Solutions Business Unit at RSA. While at RSA, Marc presented at the US Congress, FDIC and Federal Trade Commission on cyber security and identity theft topics.

Marc holds a double major B.A. in Computer Science and Economics from Tel Aviv University and an M.B.A. from the Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration.