Netscout Recognized Practically 7.9M DDOS Assaults within the First Half of 2023

WESTFORD, Mass., September 26, 2023 – NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC., (NASDAQ: NTCT) at this time introduced findings from its 1H2023 DDoS Threat Intelligence Report. Cybercriminals launched roughly 7.9 million Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assaults within the first half of 2023, representing a 31% year-over-year enhance.

World occasions just like the Russia-Ukraine battle and NATO bids have pushed current DDoS assault progress. Finland was focused by pro-Russian hacktivists in 2022 throughout its bid to hitch NATO. Turkey and Hungary have been focused with DDoS assaults for opposing Finland’s bid. In 2023, Sweden skilled the same onslaught round its NATO bid, culminating with a 500 Gbps DDoS assault in Could. Total, ideologically motivated DDoS assaults have focused the USA, Ukraine, Finland, Sweden, Russia, and a number of different international locations.

Throughout 2H2022, NETSCOUT documented a development in DDoS assaults towards wi-fi telecommunications suppliers that incurred a 79% enhance globally. That development continued amongst APAC wi-fi suppliers in 1H2023 with a 294% enhance, which correlates to many broadband gaming customers shifting their exercise to 5G mounted wi-fi entry as suppliers roll out their networks.

NETSCOUT’s insights into the risk panorama come from its ATLAS sensor community constructed over a long time of working with lots of of Web Service Suppliers globally, gleaning tendencies from a mean of 424 Tbps of web peering site visitors, a rise of 5.7% over 2022. The corporate has noticed practically 500% progress in HTTP/S software layer assaults since 2019 and 17% progress in DNS reflection/amplification volumes in the course of the first half of 2023.

“While world events and 5G network expansion have driven an increase in DDoS attacks, adversaries continue to evolve their approach to be more dynamic by taking advantage of bespoke infrastructure such as bulletproof hosts or proxy networks to launch attacks,” said Richard Hummel, senior risk intelligence lead, NETSCOUT. “The lifecycle of DDoS attack vectors reveals the persistence of adversaries to find and weaponize new methods of attack, while DNS water torture and carpet-bombing attacks have become more prevalent.”

Different key findings from the NETSCOUT 1H2023 DDoS Menace Intelligence Report embody:

• Carpet-Bombing Assaults Rise. A resurgence in carpet-bombing assaults occurred for the reason that starting of the 12 months, with a 55% enhance to greater than 724 every day, which NETSCOUT believes is a conservative estimate. These assaults trigger important hurt throughout the worldwide web, spreading to lots of and even 1000’s of hosts concurrently. This tactic typically avoids triggering excessive bandwidth threshold alerts to start well timed DDoS assault mitigation.
• DNS Water-Torture Assaults Change into Commonplace. DNS water-torture assaults rose practically 353% in every day assaults for the reason that starting of the 12 months. The highest 5 industries focused embody wired telecom, wi-fi telecom, knowledge processing internet hosting, digital purchasing and mail-order corporations, and insurance coverage businesses and brokerages.
• Greater Schooling and Governments Disproportionately Attacked. Adversaries create their very own or use various kinds of abusable infrastructure as platforms to launch assaults. For instance, open proxies have been constantly leveraged in HTTP/S application-layer DDoS assaults towards targets within the greater training and nationwide authorities sectors. In the meantime, DDoS botnets featured steadily in assaults towards state and native governments.
• DDoS Sources Are Persistent. A comparatively small variety of nodes are concerned in a disproportionate variety of DDoS assaults, with a mean IP tackle churn price of solely 10%, as attackers are likely to re-use abusable infrastructures. Whereas these nodes are persistent, the influence fluctuates as adversaries rotate by way of totally different lists of abusable infrastructure each few days.

Go to our interactive website for extra info on NETSCOUT’s semi-annual DDoS Menace Intelligence Report. For real-time DDoS assault stats, map, and insights, go to NETSCOUT Cyber Threat Horizon. You can too discover us on Facebook, LinkedInand Twitter.

About NETSCOUT

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ: NTCT) protects the related world from cyberattacks and efficiency and availability disruptions by way of the corporate’s distinctive visibility platform and options powered by its pioneering deep packet inspection at scale expertise. NETSCOUT serves the world’s largest enterprises, service suppliers, and public sector organizations. Be taught extra at www.netscout.com or comply with @NETSCOUT on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Fb.

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