For those on the receiving end, DDoS attacks are expensive. If you want to avoid losing a lot of money, it pays to be insured. And it's better to get your protection from the good guys.

Corero Network Security is a company that fits into a small but growing sector of the information security community. It looks at ways to combat the increasingly sophisticated -- and often untraceable -- denial-of-service attacks targeting organizations of all kinds. The company says the bulk of the attacks today are not the spectacular, ideology-driven kinds that grab headlines.

"Most of the attacks, we know, involve things like unfair competition," says Neil Roiter, research director of Corero Network Security Inc. "In other words, another company in your own market, your own sector, hitting you to knock you offline, to chase away customers, to lure customers to their own site."

Roiter adds that when Corero surveyed companies in the U.S. subjected to DDoS attack, more than half believed they had been targeted by the competition. Then there are other attacks: ones that are essentially information age protection rackets.

"It's like the old protection racket where guys come into your shop, your store, like in the movies and they say, 'You have a nice place here. It would be a shame if something bad happened to it. Or happened to you.'