DDoS Attacks on a Tear in Q4 2021

Nearly half of all distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the fourth quarter of 2021 hit organizations in the US during an extremely active period for the disruptive attacks, new data shows.

Kaspersky reported tracking 4.5 times more DDoS attacks in the fourth quarter than in the previous quarter, with attacks targeting victims in the US (43.55%), China (9.96%), Hong Kong (8.80%), Germany (4.85%), and France (3.75%). The security vendor attributed the massive spike in DDoS attacks to seasonal trends, such as online holiday shopping and cyber activists traditionally being more active October through December.

The "sharp drop" in cryptocurrency value in the fourth quarter also was a factor: "This is because DDoS and mining capacities are partially interchangeable, so botnet owners tend to deploy them in mining when cryptocurrency prices are high and in DDoS when they fall. We witnessed precisely that in Q4, and not for the first time: a rise in the number of DDoS attacks amid a sharp drop in the value of cryptocurrencies," Kaspersky security expert Alexander Gutnikov wrote in a blog post on the DDoS attacks.