2023 IDC Global DNS Threat Report
IDC has produced the Global DNS Threat Report survey since 2017. The survey is based on interviews with 1.000 organisations across five business size segments from 10 countries on three continents and ten industry sectors.
Since its first release in 2019, the number of DNS-based attacks and their average cost have grown steadily annually. The average cost for these attacks cannot only be measured in money. Long-term impacts like customer loss and brand damage should also be taken into consideration.
Once again, IDC has condensed a really good 20-page report about DNS-based attacks globally. In this article, we will highlight a few areas we find particularly interesting.
First and foremost, it is gratifying to see a rise in the number of organisations that have started to take DNS security seriously. The number rose from 73% in 2022 to 80% in 2023. The acknowledgement is a good start, but there is still a substantial gap between the realisation and implementation of good DNS security measures.
There are a few numbers in the executive summary that stand out:
- 90% of the participating organisations experienced at least one cyberattack during 2023.
- The average cost is $1.1m per attack.
- 7.5 attacks on average per organisation during 2023.
- There is a 5% increase in data theft to 29% due to an attack.
- These are high numbers regardless of industry affiliation. Combined, they amount to a staggering $8.2 billion to cover the costs of these attacks!
Looking further into the report, other details stand out besides huge costs.
- 59% of the attacks on Healthcare caused significant in-house downtime on applications and equipment, jeopardising patient security.
- Telecoms and Media was the most targeted industry branch, with 94% of the participants reporting attacks causing disruption in infrastructure services, which could possibly cause collateral damage for other business sectors.
- Financial services suffered the highest average cost of attacks, at $1.2m. Although the average cost is not significantly higher than the average cost for all industry sectors, the broader implications could possibly spread and impact the broader economy.
The overall impacts and costs of DNS-based attacks have to be measured in both short-term and long-term losses. Short-term losses are easier to quantify, like revenue loss, loss of productivity, and possible regulatory fines. Long-term losses are much harder to calculate. Data theft, especially of intellectual property or sensitive customer information, could be far more valuable than the average short-term cost. Brand damages might even be unrecoverable, so there is a big unknown here.
Editors note:
Not all attacks are discovered and exposed. Ransomware and DDoS attacks are very easy to spot when they hit and can cause significant damage. Even though security products are discovering the vast majority of all attacks, there are still attacks that will stay unnoticed. Cache poisoning and DNS hijacking attacks can be particularly devious if a threat actor plays the long game.