How much does a DDoS build? Counting the cost of DDoS attacks

Distributed denial of service attack, DDoS is a very popular tool among attackers. The reasons why cybercriminals and ordinary Internet hooligans use this tool are various. This is causing harm to a competitor, and stopping the operation of any security system or service demanding redemption. There are cases when groups that organized this type of attack demanded 5 bitcoins from the victims (more than $ 5000 at the current exchange rate).

And DDoS now, in fact, has become a publicly available tool. This type of attack is cheap enough (of course, everything depends on the scale), it can be quickly launched and just as quickly stopped. Recently it became known how much the creators of various botnets are taking for conducting DDoS attacks.

DDoS as a service

Ordering an attack is usually done on a regular website, which looks almost like a corporate one. Kaspersky Lab specialists checked such resources, having told about it in detail. As a rule, there is no need for direct communication between the customer and the owner of the DDoS service. On a special resource, an attack of a certain power is paid with an indication of the purpose and that’s all. Further the service itself is already operating.
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There are English-speaking services, there are Russian-speaking. Resources of this type allow you to check your balance and plan the flow of the budget allocated for the attack. In some cases, customers are even offered bonuses.



Sometimes services show the number of registered users, the number of previous attacks and the number of attacks that are conducted at a particular point in time. Everything is very professional.

Well, how much does it cost?

It all depends on customer requirements. There are four main factors of pricing.

1. Purpose and its properties. Those who keep DDoS-services (how strange it sounds, right?) Usually agree to attack any type of resources. Sometimes for certain goals they ask for more money - this usually happens when the target resource has its own protection, more or less reliable.

2. Characteristics of the source of attack. The cheaper the maintenance of a botnet is, the cheaper the DDoS from it will be. For example, a botnet created from IoT devices may cost less than the botnet that was created using servers.

3. Attack scenario. Attacks of different levels cost different money - everything is clear here.

4. The cost of attacks in different countries. The price of DDoS services in different countries may differ dramatically. It all depends on the target audience and its purchasing power.

An example of pricing can be seen in the screenshot below.



Here, a 300 seconds DDoS will cost the customer 5 euros. If the duration is 1,800 seconds, then the price will increase to $ 60. Below shows the pricing of some Russian-language service.



In some cases, attackers use combined types of attacks in order to overcome the potential defense of a potential victim with a high degree of probability. "Hybrid" DDoS will cost the customer more than usual.

Here are some more prices, also from the Russian-language service.



By the way, some services refuse to attack state resources. The fact is that the special services are looking after them, therefore the customer and the contractor can expect severe punishment if they are detected.



As an example of pricing, you can take the attack using the "cloud" + DNS gain + SaaS gain



If, for example, to take the cost of working with Amazon EC2 for calculations, then this is somewhere around $ 0.0065. For a relatively weak attack, you may need 50 virtual servers. It will cost cybercriminals $ 0.325 per hour. It is also worth taking into account the additional costs (SIM card for account registration or credit card). As a result, the cost of entry-level DDoS attacks can be about $ 4.





Work with 1000 workstations will cost about $ 7 per hour. But the hourly DDoS attack of this level will cost the customer $ 25. That is, cybercriminals earn about $ 18 (this is net profit) per hour of DDoS.

In general, this is the average for the market. Now cybercriminals are constantly looking for ways to reduce the cost of DDoS. Basically, this issue is solved by creating a botnet from IoT devices, which are poorly protected from hacking, so hacking hundreds of thousands of “smart” devices is not a problem. Probably, over time, DDoS will be cheaper, which means that this type of attack will be more. So it is worth preparing in advance for such an attack, so that later it would not be excruciatingly painful.

PS: If you want to foresee protection against DDoS attacks in advance, or your business has already encountered a similar attack - even in this case we can help. If you order the Anti-DDoS Protection service and enter the code word “habrddos2017” in a letter / online chat / by phone, you will receive a lifetime discount of -20% .

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