Akamai Finds Web App Attacks Increased in Q3 2017

Akamai released its third quarter 2017 State of the Internet/Security report on Nov. 28, providing new statistics on the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and web application attack landscape. The 24-page report revealed a 48 percent year-over-year increase in the number of web application security attacks. While the number of web application attacks has grown, the top type of web application attack remains unchanged, with SQL injection accounting for 47 percent of web application attacks in the third quarter. Looking at Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, Akamai reported that 86 percent of all attacks were directed at gaming companies. This slide show covers some of the details from Akamai’s Third Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet/Security Report.

Attackers continue to use different techniques in DDoS attacks, with User Datagram Protocol fragments being the most commonly used DDoS data stream booster in third quarter at 30 percent.

While DDoS attacks impact multiple industry verticals, in the third quarter of 2017 the gaming industry was on the receiving end of 86 percent of all attacks seen by Akamai, up from 82 percent in the second quarter of 2017.

Looking at the sources of DDoS attacks, the top country position has changed a few times. In the third quarter of 2017, Germany was the top source for DDoS with 22 percent of all source IPs.

Akamai notes a 69 percent year-over-year increase in the total number of web application attacks in third quarter of 2017.

Akamai reported that SQL Injection was used in 47percent of web application attacks in the third quarter.

The U.S remained the top target of web application attack traffic, with more than 323 million attacks observed by Akamai in the 2017 third quarter.

Not only is the U.S. the top web application target, it is also the top source accounting for nearly 39 percent of attacks seen by Akamai in the third quarter of 2017.