1High-Bandwidth DDoS Attacks Becoming More Commonplace, Verisign Finds
By Sean Michael Kerner
210G-bps DDoS Attacks Are Growing
One of the highlights of Verisign’s third-quarter DDoS trends report is the observation that attacks of 10G bps or greater have grown quarter over quarter. During the third quarter, 10G-bps attacks represented 20 percent of all attacks seen by Verisign.
3Average Attack Size in Third Quarter Was 6.46G bps
The second quarter of 2014 had several massive attacks that skewed the data somewhat and led to an average attack size of 12.42G bps. When Verisign normalized the second quarter data, removing the outlier massive attacks, the average attack size was 4.60G bps. In contrast, the third-quarter average came in at 6.46G bps.
4Attackers Attempt Average of 3.3 DDoS Attacks per Organization
Repeat attacks against the same organization are becoming increasingly common, the report found. During the quarter, there was an average of 3.3 DDoS attacks per organization.
5Media and Entertainment Remains the Top Target
While every industry is a potential target of a DDoS attack, the majority of attacks observed by Verisign during the third quarter targeted the media and entertainment sector.
6E-Commerce Industry Had the Highest DDoS Attack Size
While media and entertainment companies represented the industry with the majority of DDoS attacks by attack volume, the largest attack by bandwidth during the quarter impacted the e-commerce market.
7UDP Attacks Are the Largest
Attacks that leverage User Datagram Protocol (UDP) technologies including Network Time Protocol (NTP) produced the largest attack bandwidth in the third quarter, peaking at 90G bps.
8Simple Service Directory Protocol DDoS Attacks Emerge
For the first time, Verisign saw DDoS attacks leveraging the Simple Service Directory Protocol (SSDP), which is a UDP-based protocol, during the third quarter. The largest SSDP-based attack in the quarter was reported at 15G bps.