Just when everyone thought the cyber threat could not get more complex and the impact associated with a cyber attack increasingly year after year, something new came up. After a cyber intelligence event, a conversation arose that was well worth giving some attention. It appears there is a growing percentage of the online community that has had it with the constant attacks we all experience daily. A sentiment was present that there should be something done rather than the way we just sit there and take it.
One measure that came up was holding system owners accountable if they do not have a minimal level of protection, are compromised, and become an asset used in a distributed denial-of-serviceDDoS attack. The focus on DDoS attacks is understandable given that earlier this year one report stated the number of DDoS attacks in the first quarterQ1 of this year were double that in the same time period the year before. If that is not bad enough aAnother report stated a smartSMART refrigerator was used as a bot in a botnet attack. The costs associated with a DDoS attack has raised sharply as we become more reliant on continuous connectivity in business. One surveyed found that DDoS attacks cost a group of organizations studied $100,000 an hour or more.
Many are now pointing to these numbers and believe the time has come for some minimum level of security being required on every device that connects to the Internet. Opponents believe that is impractical and quickly point to the new estimates of over 200 billion Internet of Things connected devices by 2020. One thing is apparent: and that is wWe need to do something different. The current measures are clearly not working.
