DDoS and Attacks Against Port 23 on the Rise

by Sean Michael Kerner

In the fourth quarter of 2014, China was the source of 41 percent of attack traffic, down from 49 percent in the third quarter of 2014.

The percentage of attack traffic hitting port 23 (Telnet) on systems continues to rise. In the fourth quarter, Akamai reported that 32 percent of all observed attack traffic was against port 23, up from 12 percent in the third quarter of 2014.

After two quarters of near flat activity, the fourth quarter saw a renewed spike in the number of DDoS attacks. There were 327 DDoS attacks reported by Akamai in the fourth quarter, the highest reported number since the fourth quarter of 2013, when 346 such attacks were reported.

No industry is immune to DDoS attacks, though Akamai found that its enterprise customers are the most attacked. In the fourth quarter of 2014, 31 percent of all DDoS attacks observed by Akamai were against enterprises, which is actually a decline from the 39 percent reported in the third quarter of 2014.

The global average connection speed was reported at 4.5M bps, which is a 20 percent year-over-year gain.

In a shift from the third quarter, Virginia is now the state with the fastest average connection speed. Virginia’s fourth-quarter average connection speed was reported at 17.7M bps for a 23 percent year-over-year gain. Delaware, which came in first in the third quarter of 2014, fell to second place with an average speed of 16.4M bps.

Mobile bandwidth in the fourth quarter varied widely across different geographies. In the U.S., the average mobile connection speed was 3.2M bps.

Akamai found that the most widely used browser is Apple’s mobile Safari for iOS. Overall, Akamai reported that iOS accounted for about 48 percent of requests, while Android accounted for roughly 40 percent of requests to Akamai’s network.

Akamai found that 62 percent of Verizon Wireless’ traffic came in over IPv6. Comcast had 29 percent of traffic over IPv6, while AT&T recorded 20 percent over IPv6.