The lack of protection against CYBER-attacks, the Swedish newspaper svenska Dagbladet

denial of Service attacks, called ddos attacks, are present in all higher extent and can cause great harm to the company.

– Features that are vital for a company’s business can be knocked out, ” said Mikael Westerlund, chief technical officer at the internet service provider IP-Only.

It can be about such simple things as that it is not possible to use the phones or responding to emails. But also important säljstöds, logistics or order systems to stop functioning.

the Purpose of the attacks on individual companies can be several. Simple prank, politically or religiously motivated attacks, but also outright blackmail.

– The last two are often more sophisticated and implemented, ” says Mikael Westerlund.

In the spring was the CYBER attacks against several Swedish media company and authorities of the highly-acclaimed. Despite this, a recent survey by research company Novus has done on behalf of the IP-Only six out of ten companies have not taken any extra measures to protect themselves.

five companies stated that they have no adequate protection against denial of service attacks and just as many say they do not know.

” We’ve got all the prerequisites in företagssverige to become enlightened and to actually act. Yet it is all too clear that we are not doing it, ” says Mikael Westerlund, who believe that the issue of the protection against denial of service attacks often deal with the IT department – when it really should be on the management table.

– the Management has to ask what happens if you do not install locks on the premises, but when it comes to ddos attacks, it seems to hide. It is probably about ignorance, which is sloppy when it often is such a critical part of the business, ” he says.

at the same time responds, 84% of the companies surveyed that they believe that the number of CYBER-attacks will increase in the future. More than six out of ten companies also believe that they would suffer a lot or quite a large damage if the network stopped working because of an attack.

It need not be so difficult or expensive to protect themselves. To again use the comparison with the lock should analyse whether it is enough to lock the doors or if the risk is so great that there need to be a guard on site all the time.

– You should not put all your eggs in the same basket. Often, we have a lock, but also an alarm. If there is a flaw in the lock is the alarm as a backup, ” says Mikael Westerlund.

Richard Oehme, head of cybersecurity and the protection of important public business at the Swedish civil contingencies Agency (MSB) agree that it is important for businesses large organizations to protect themselves against överlastningsattacker.

– that you need To protect yourself is, of course, but it depends a bit on what they deliver for the service. For example, an online service that the sale is based on, the man becomes very sensitive to denial of service attacks, ” he says.

TT: The attacks, the public gets to hear about is directed towards the media or the authorities, how common is it that it is done against other types of businesses?

” I don’t know exactly how it looks, but it does occur. Municipalities are affected quite often. It can be young people who buy a ddos attack with the mom’s or dad’s credit card. Then, the entire kommunnätet go down, ” he says.

Richard Oehmes tips to entrepreneurs is to separate their network services, so not everything goes down at the same time, if they were to be an attack, and to buy a ddos protection from their internet service provider.