WESTFORD, Mass., September 26, 2023 – NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC., (NASDAQ: NTCT) today announced findings from its 1H2023 DDoS Threat Intelligence Report. Cybercriminals launched approximately 7.9 million Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in the first half of 2023, representing a 31% year-over-year increase.
Global events like the Russia-Ukraine war and NATO bids have driven recent DDoS attack growth. Finland was targeted by pro-Russian hacktivists in 2022 during its bid to join NATO. Turkey and Hungary were targeted with DDoS attacks for opposing Finland’s bid. In 2023, Sweden experienced a similar onslaught around its NATO bid, culminating with a 500 Gbps DDoS attack in May. Overall, ideologically motivated DDoS attacks have targeted the United States, Ukraine, Finland, Sweden, Russia, and multiple other countries.
During 2H2022, NETSCOUT documented a trend in DDoS attacks against wireless telecommunications providers that incurred a 79% increase globally. That trend continued among APAC wireless providers in 1H2023 with a 294% increase, which correlates to many broadband gaming users shifting their activity to 5G fixed wireless access as providers roll out their networks.
NETSCOUT’s insights into the threat landscape come from its ATLAS sensor network built over decades of working with hundreds of Internet Service Providers globally, gleaning trends from an average of 424 Tbps of internet peering traffic, an increase of 5.7% over 2022. The company has observed nearly 500% growth in HTTP/S application layer attacks since 2019 and 17% growth in DNS reflection/amplification volumes during 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,” stated Richard Hummel, senior threat 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.”
Other key findings from the NETSCOUT 1H2023 DDoS Threat Intelligence Report include:
Visit our interactive website for more information on NETSCOUT’s semi-annual DDoS Threat Intelligence Report. For real-time DDoS attack stats, map, and insights, visit NETSCOUT Cyber Threat Horizon. You can also find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
About NETSCOUT
NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ: NTCT) protects the connected world from cyberattacks and performance and availability disruptions through the company’s unique visibility platform and solutions powered by its pioneering deep packet inspection at scale technology. NETSCOUT serves the world’s largest enterprises, service providers, and public sector organizations. Learn more at www.netscout.com or follow @NETSCOUT on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.
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