Internet performance management company Dyn has released findings highlighting the impact internet disruptions have on UK organizations, revealing that a lack of visibility beyond company ‘walls’ is preventing them from anticipating and resolving issues as quickly as they need to.
The survey, which quizzed 100 senior-level IT professionals in the UK, found that over half (57%) of the internet disruptions UK companies faced last year occurred outside their network control. This is clearly a significant problem for UK orgs, with 25% of respondents admitting they find it extremely or very difficult to monitor and identify problems when an internet disruption occurs outside of their network control, whilst a third (31%) also said it is extremely or very difficult to resolve such issues.
“Digital delivery is reliant on a complex and extensive digital supply chain,” Paul Heywood, MD EMEA, Dyn, told Infosecurity. “Lack of visibility of the end-to-end dependencies clearly poses a risk and many organizations won’t learn about internet disruption until they become a victim of it.”
In terms of the fallout following a disruption, 30% of UK businesses have experienced, or would expect to experience, loss of revenue and nearly a quarter (23%) would expect a loss of new business as a result. However, Dyn found that just four in 10 monitor their network activity and identify patterns.
If there’s one company that knows first-hand just how damaging an internet disruption can be it’s Dyn, with the Hampshire-based firm suffering a huge DDoS attack in October last year which impacted several of its well-known SaaS applications and internet sites, and Heywood argued it’s now time for all companies to realize how important visibility into the performance of the complex, volatile internet is.
“Businesses need to take control and remove the blindfolds to gain a complete picture of their network and how it connects to the wider world,” he added. “To do so requires investing in data and analytics solutions that measure the performance of the internet and cloud-vendors, as well as adding secondary DNS solutions to help mitigate risks and ensure business continuity. Those companies that take these steps now will be able to identify and resolve any disruptions much more quickly and ultimately develop digital resilience to gain a competitive advantage.”