Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) saw a surge during the last quarter of 2021, according to a recent report by Kaspersky.
The total number of DDoS attacks showed an increase of 52 percent compared to Q3 2021 and was 4.5 times more than the same time last year.
DDoS attacks allow cybercriminals to send multiple requests to the attacked web resource with the aim of exceeding the website’s capacity to handle multiple requests and prevent the website from functioning correctly.
Attacks may last several days, causing huge disruptions for organisations, posing pose a huge threat to businesses and organisations that provide online services. From October to the end of December 2021, Kaspersky researchers observed a massive increase in the number of DDoS attacks – a record number in the entire history of Kaspersky’s observations of this threat.
According to Kaspersky, the last three months of any year are always rich in DDoS attacks. This is due to online retail peaks due to sales and holidays, exam period for students starts and cyber activists, generally, become more active.
Another possible reason for the surge in attacks could also be driven by the decline of the cryptocurrency market. This is due to the capacity for organising DDoS and cryptocurrency mining being interchangeable – botnet owners tend to redirect the power to mining when the cryptocurrency grows and to DDoS when it falls.
“This is exactly what we observed in the fourth quarter, an increase in the number of DDoS attacks against the backdrop of a sharp drop in the value of cryptocurrencies,” said the Kaspersky report.
Most of the attacks in Q4 were reported in the United States (43.55 percent), China (9.96 percent), Hong Kong (8.80 percent), Germany (4.85 percent), and France (3.75 percent).
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“The DDoS threat landscape is constantly changing, reflecting the current economic and social trends. We expected the growth of DDoS attacks in Q4 due to the sales season but the unstable situation in the cryptocurrency market put the DDoS landscape on another level completely with an absolute record in the number of attacks. Relying on the trends of previous years, the first quarter of 2022 should not show a significant decrease in DDoS attacks. Thus, we urge implementing professional solutions to safeguard your organisation against DDoS attacks,” said Alexander Gutnikov, security expert, Kaspersky.
