The content delivery network, Akamai, recently released it’s Q1 2016 State of the Internet – Security Report, where the company found somewhat terrifying increases in DDoS attacks. There has been a 125 percent increase in distributed denial of service, aka DDoS attacks year over year but there has been a 35 percent increase in the average attack duration. But why is this? Comparing this years first quarter to that of 2015, in 2015 the average attack lasted around 15 hours, now that has increased to 16 hours. In addition, the type of attack has changed. Massive DDoS attacks that are 100 Gigabits per second are now increasingly common, with 19 of these attacks in the first quarter of 2016. This is nearly triple the number of massive attacks in 2015. An 137.5 percent increase to be exact.
In total, Akamai witnessed 4,523 DDoS attacks in 2016’s first quarter. Major Ugh. Furthermore in the first quarter of 2015, there was an average of 15 attack events per targeted customer, now that average has jumped to 29 attacks per targeted customer. By repeating attacks on the same customers rather than going after more targets, the amount of attacks per target dramatically increased.
In previous years, we saw hackers shying away from protected networks. Now hackers continue to try to infiltrate networks no matter if they are protected or not, hoping that eventually one of the defenses in place will fail. In addition to this, repeat attacks have increased due to the DDoS platforms becoming less expensive and easier to use. No hacking or networking skills are required anymore for DDoS attacks. Furthermore, DDoS for hire sites are now in place that enable anyone with Bitcoin to launch multiple simultaneous attacks from an easy-to-use interface with a menu of attacks.
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