According to VeriSign, its research suggests that DDoS attacks are increasing in frequency, scale and sophistication.
A report by Forrester, says the IT security company found just under 75% of respondents had been a victim of one or more DDoS attacks within the past year.
All affected organisations, adds the firm, were from varying sectors but said the consequences were the same: their ISP's services were disrupted and their companies consequently lost revenue.
Matthew Bruun, a VeriSign security expert, said that the Scientology case highlights the gravity of the situation around DDoS attacks.
"The fact that the attack against the Church of Scientology was recognized as a serious cybercrime – to the extent that the perpetrator went to prison for it – shows the seriousness of this sinister threat", he said.
"The losses a business can incur through a targeted DDoS attack are enormous, even if they're not out of action for long. We have typically found that businesses attempt to protect themselves with dated measures such as over-bandwidth provisioning, which are costly and ineffective", he added.
Bruun went on to say that businesses should consider investing in managed services. For a growing number of organisations, he argues that the most cost-effective and comprehensive solution is a managed DDoS mitigation service.
Bruun also points to the need to address application and configuration issues. With DDoS attacks evolving from brute force traffic floods to subtle infiltrations of the application layer, he says, organizations need better insight into application thresholds and vulnerabilities.
"Business should address simplistic configurations and common application vulnerabilities", he said.