Magnet Plus’s Patrick Masterson discusses why now is the time to engage in a combined network and security strategy to ensure business continuity and maintain customer trust.

For many organisations, cybersecurity has traditionally focused on protecting data, preventing ransomware and securing endpoints.

But one of the biggest cyberthreats facing businesses today isn’t designed to steal personal data or information at all – it’s designed to grind your business operations to a complete standstill. Known as ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS) attacks, they are becoming one of the most disruptive cyberthreats to business continuity today.

According to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity Threat Landscape 2025, DDoS attacks accounted for 77pc of reported cybersecurity incidents across the EU last year, making them the single most common form of cyberattack.

Rather than stealing sensitive data or deploying ransomware, DDoS attacks overwhelm a company’s internet-facing network infrastructure with excessive traffic, slowing down online services for legitimate customers and employees alike and in severe cases, rendering them partially or completely unavailable. This results in service outages and slow performance; customer portals stop responding, communications become interrupted and employees are unable to access the vital applications they rely on every day.

Even a relatively short period of downtime can have significant operational and financial consequences, affecting revenue, customer confidence and business reputation.

Currently, there is a serious concern that the occurrence of DDoS attacks will increase in Ireland in the coming months due to Ireland’s presidency of the EU. The concerns are based on the fact that there was a rise in DDoS attacks in Denmark in 2025 and in Cyprus earlier this year during their EU presidencies.

The most common attacks are ransom DDoS attacks, whereby attackers launch a DDoS attack against companies, threaten larger attacks and demand payment usually in cryptocurrency. Online retailers, banks, gaming companies, technology companies, cloud and SaaS providers frequently fall into this bracket. Government departments, semi-state organisations and political organisations have also experienced DDoS attacks based on their political nature and the ability for the attack to attract media attention if they succeed. Other high-profile targets include well-known national and international brands or companies listed on the global stock market.

The National Cyber Security Centre has already warned that attacks during the Irish Presidency could result in a disruption to services which could cause severe damage to the reputation of Ireland and the EU.

A fundamental mindset shift in how organisations safeguard their digital infrastructure is now required to mitigate this DDoS risk and ensure systems are continually protected.

With companies depending more and more on AI-powered applications, unified communications, hybrid working and digital customer experiences, the ability to keep critical systems online has become just as important as protecting the data they contain.

As a result, connectivity and cybersecurity shouldn’t be treated as separate conversations. Connectivity is no longer expected simply to deliver faster speeds. Instead, organisations need to ask whether that connectivity can withstand disruption.

Can employees continue working if demand suddenly spikes? Can customer-facing applications remain available during malicious activity? Can critical systems continue operating when the unexpected happens? Increasingly, these are boardroom questions rather than IT questions.

However, resilient connectivity alone is no longer enough. The rise of DDoS attacks shows that network availability itself has become a target. Protecting that availability requires organisations to build cybersecurity into the network rather than treating it as an additional layer added afterwards.

Increasingly, organisations are responding to the heightened risk of DDoS attacks by utilising dedicated internet access (DIA). Unlike shared broadband, DIA provides businesses with a private connection, allowing for uncontended bandwidth, symmetrical speeds and guaranteed performance while giving organisations greater confidence that business-critical applications can continue to perform reliably.

Combining a DIA service with always-on DDoS protection reduces the risk of cyberattacks further by continuously monitoring network traffic, identifying malicious activity in real time and automatically mitigating attacks before they impact services.

Ultimately, this isn’t simply about preventing cyberattacks. It’s about ensuring business continuity, maintaining customer trust, protecting employee productivity and ensuring essential digital services remain available when customers need them most.

As DDoS attacks become more frequent and organisations become increasingly dependent on digital services, resilience can no longer be treated as an IT issue alone. The businesses best prepared for the future will be those that build networks designed not only for performance, but for protection, availability and continuity.

In today’s digital economy, resilience isn’t just an IT objective – it’s fundamental to business success.

By Patrick Masterson

Patrick Masterson is managing director at Irish telecoms and broadband provider Magnet Plus. He has more than 20 years of experience in a range of C Suite roles in Irish companies across the retail, technology and healthcare sectors.

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