European Commission Was Knocked Offline By A ‘Large Scale’ DDoS Attack

Following the news that the European Commission was knocked offline by a ‘large scale’ DDoS attack, IT security experts from Corero Network Security and NSFOCUS commented below.

Sean Newman, Director at Corero Network Security:

“There’s no denying the pandemic levels that DDoS attacks are reaching – overall, attacks are still on the increase and the largest attacks are now at a scale which was inconceivable until only recently.  Reports from the European Commission of saturated Internet connectivity are just another example of why organisations need to be looking to their Service Providers for protection against DDoS attacks, as on-premise defences are virtually powerless once incoming links have been overwhelmed.

“However, for all the hype around these so called mega-attacks, they still represent a tiny fraction of all the DDoS attacks which take place on a daily basis.  The vast majority of DDoS attacks are much smaller, in volume and duration, often surgically crafted to knock out a specific target in just a few minutes, with damage that takes much longer to rectify – whatever DDoS defences are employed, they need to be effective at both ends of the scale to avoid disruption and all its financial and reputational consequences.”

Richard Meeus, VP Technology EMEA at NSFOCUS:

“This attack highlights that DDOS attacks not only affect a company’s online presence such as access to their website – but all their internet dependant assets. This means email, b2b transactions, VPN, web browsing – you are essentially cut-off and back to 1995”