DDoS Attacks Fell 23% in First Quarter, Grew in Size

Although the number of DDoS attacks dropped in the first three months of the year, the average size of each attack grew, according to a Verisign report released Tuesday.

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

May 25, 2017

1 Min Read
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DDoS attacks during the first quarter fell by 23%, but the average peak size ballooned by 26% to 14.1 Gbps compared with the previous quarter, according to the Verisign Q1 2017 DDoS Trends Report released Tuesday.

The largest DDoS attack during the first quarter generated volume over 120 Gbps, with approximately 90 million packets per second slamming the targeted network at its peak, according to the report. This attack lasted more than 15 hours.

Verisign also found that 57% of DDoS attacks used multiple attack vectors during the first quarter, ranging from two vectors to more than five. Of all the attacks during the first quarter, UDP Floods accounted for 48%, with TCP-based attacks coming in second at 33%.

Frequent targets of these attacks were usually the IT/Cloud/SaaS industry, grabbing 58% of the nefarious action, the report stated. The financial sector came in second, accounting for 28% of the attacks.

Read more about the Verisign Q1 2017 DDoS Trends Report here.

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Dark Reading Staff

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