This is the price that bot herders are advertising across online forums, a move that the IT security vendor says makes their services more accessible than previously thought.

VeriSign's investigation, which targetted 25 bot herders operating out of three online forums, also uncovered that the average price for botnet rental over a 24-hour period was $67.20.

Rick Howard, director of intelligence at VeriSign iDefense, said: "Organisations need to be wary of the fact that their critical online applications or services could be taken down in under a day by a criminal renting services from bot herders at just $8.94 per hour – the same price as a memory stick or DVD."

"Traditionally businesses have tried to cope with DDoS attacks through bandwidth over-provisioning, but this is costly and ineffective given the increasing scale and sophistication of attacks", he added.

"Early identification is crucial to successfully mitigating the impact of a DDoS attack. Cloud-based solutions such as the VeriSign internet defense network monitor for anomalies in website traffic that indicate an impending attack, helping to protect organizations more effectively."

"Whilst these attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the criminals targeting your business may not be. Don't leave your company vulnerable to any criminal with an internet connection and a little cash to spare", he said.