- VeriSign Sees Sharp Climb in DDoS Attack Volume in Q2
- Average Quarterly Peak Attack Size Growing
- Largest Attack Was 300G bps
- Media and Entertainment Sites Are a Key Target
- Most DDoS Attacks Are Greater than 1G bps
- UDP Attacks Continue to Dwarf TCP by Volume
- Application Attacks Decline
- Short-Duration Attacks Are the Norm
VeriSign Sees Sharp Climb in DDoS Attack Volume in Q2
by Sean Michael Kerner
Average Quarterly Peak Attack Size Growing
In the second quarter, the average quarterly peak attack size hit 12.42G bps, up from only 3.17G bps in the second quarter of 2013.
Largest Attack Was 300G bps
The largest attack VeriSign saw in the second quarter had a peak of 300G bps.
Media and Entertainment Sites Are a Key Target
Though no market segment is immune to the risk of DDoS, in the second quarter, 43 percent of attacks were logged against media and entertainment sites.
Most DDoS Attacks Are Greater than 1G bps
Over the course of the last quarter, there has been a shift in peak attack sizes. In the second quarter, 35 percent of DDoS attacks had a peak attack size of less than 1G bps, down from 74 percent in the first quarter of 2014.
UDP Attacks Continue to Dwarf TCP by Volume
User Datagram Protocol-based (UDP-based) attacks once again represented the largest types of DDoS in terms of bandwidth. The top UDP attacks consumed 300G bps while the top Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) attacks hit 35G bps.
Application Attacks Decline
Attackers are not going after the application layer as much as they once did. In the first quarter 2014, 30 percent of DDoS attacks targeted the application layer, which declined to only 10 percent in the second quarter.
Short-Duration Attacks Are the Norm
According to VeriSign, high-volume, short-duration attacks were a typical attack pattern in the second quarter.