DDoS attacks skyrocket after a long period of decline

DDoS attacks skyrocket after a long period of decline

Last year, it seemed that DDoS attacks had decreased, but a new study from Kaspersky Lab revealed that the number of attacks had increased significantly in the first quarter of 2019.

At the time, experts at the cybersecurity firm assumed that cybercriminals had turned their attention to other attack methods, such as cryptography.

However, statistics for the first quarter of 2019 contradict this trend and show that the number of DDoS attacks blocked by Kaspersky Lab's DDoS protection has increased by 84% compared to the fourth quarter of 2018.

The reason the company believes that the popularity of DDoS attacks has decreased is that several DDoS markets have been eliminated. However, once the new DDoS-for-Hire websites were launched, the number of attacks has increased exponentially.

DDoS attacks

According to Kaspersky Lab, distributed denial-of-service attacks lasting more than an hour are the most notable growth area. These incidents doubled in number and their average duration increased by 487%.

These statistics confirm their experts' assumption that hackers have improved their techniques and can now launch longer attacks that require more effort to organize.

Alexey Kiselev, Business Development Manager of the Kaspersky DDoS Attack Protection Team, explained the evolution of the DDoS attack market in these terms:

"The market for DDoS attacks is changing. New DDoS services appear to have replaced those that were shut down by law enforcement. When organizations implement basic countermeasures, attackers hit them with long-term attacks. It's hard to say if the The number of attacks will continue to increase, but their complexity shows no signs of slowing down. We recommend that companies prepare effectively to resist sophisticated DDoS attacks."

To avoid falling victim to a DDoS attack, Kaspersky Lab recommends that companies ensure that their IT and web resources can handle significant traffic and that business solutions are used to counter this type of attack. d & # 39; attack.