Prolexic's Q1 2013 DDoS Report: Average Attack Bandwidth Up 718 Percent
Average attack duration increases 7.14 percent from 32.2 hours to 34.5 hours
April 17, 2013
PRESS RELEASE
HOLLYWOOD, FL – (April 17, 2013) – Prolexic Technologies, the global leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, today announced that average attack bandwidth totaled 48.25 Gbps in Q1 2013, a 718% increase over last quarter, and the average packet-per-second rate reached 32.4 million. These startling metrics are just two of many contained in the company's Quarterly Global DDoS Attack Report, which was published today.
"Average packet-per-second rate and average bit rate spiked in the first quarter and both are growing at a fast clip," said Stuart Scholly, president at Prolexic. "When you have average – not peak – rates in excess of 45 Gbps and 30 million packets-per-second, even the largest enterprises, carriers, and quite frankly most mitigation providers, are going to face significant challenges."
Early last year, a different type of DDoS attacker emerged: one with considerable botnet resources, but also an intimate understanding of how the Internet routing topology works. As a result, Prolexic detected a clear shift to high packet-per-second DDoS attacks specifically designed to overwhelm infrastructure elements such as routers. Failure of these devices often causes collateral damage, typically taking thousands of customer websites offline.
"It's a classic change up," said Scholly. "Nearly everyone has been focused on bandwidth and gigabits per second, but it's the packet rate that's causing the most damage and presenting the biggest challenge. These packet rates are above the thresholds of all but the most expensive routers and line cards and we are seeing networks buckle as a result."
Highlights from Prolexic's Q1 2013 Global DDoS Attack Report
Compared to Q4 2012
· Average attack bandwidth up 718% from 5.9 Gbps to 48.25 Gbps
· Average attack duration increases 7.14 percent from 32.2 hours to 34.5 hours
· Total number of infrastructure attacks rise 3.65 percent; total number of application attacks fall 3.85 percent
· 1.75 percent increase in total number of DDoS attacks
Compared to Q1 2012