Kaspersky Lab Finds Number of DDoS Attacks Grows After Long Period of Decline

According to a new report from Kaspersky Lab, the number of DDoS attacks during the first three months of 2019 increased by 84%, compared with the previous quarter. In particular, there has been outstanding growth in the amount of attacks that lasted more than an hour, as well as the average duration of such attacks.

Throughout 2018, the number of DDoS attacks constantly decreased. This led Kaspersky Lab experts to conclude that cybercriminals who had been conducting DDoS attacks for financial gain had shifted their attention to other sources of income, such as crypto-mining. However, statistics for Q1 2019 contradict this trend, showing that the number of DDoS attacks blocked by Kaspersky DDoS Protection has actually grown substantially since the last quarter.

This trend could indicate that such attacks are still in demand, despite becoming inaccessible for a period of time when popular DDoS marketplaces were taken down. Once new DDoS-for-Hire websites launched, the number of attacks grew exponentially as a result.

The most noticeable area of growth observed was in the number of DDoS attacks that lasted for more than an hour. These incidents doubled in quantity, and their average length increased by 487%. These statistics confirm Kaspersky Lab experts’ hypothesis that hackers are evolving their techniques and are now able to launch longer attacks, which are more difficult to organize.

“The DDoS attack market is changing, and new DDoS services appear to have replaced ones shut down by law enforcement agencies,” said Alexey Kiselev, business development manager on the Kaspersky DDoS Protection team. “As organizations implement basic countermeasures, attackers target them with long-lasting attacks. It is difficult to say if the number of attacks will continue to grow, but their complexity is showing no signs of slowing down. We recommend that organizations prepare themselves effectively, in order to withstand sophisticated DDoS attacks.”

Kaspersky Lab recommends that organizations take the following steps to protect against DDOS attacks:

• Ensure that web and IT resources can handle high volumes of traffic.
• Use professional solutions that can protect the organization against DDoS attacks regardless of their complexity, strength or duration.

More information on the latest attack trends can be found in Kaspersky Lab’s DDoS Q1 2019 report on Securelist.

About Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab is a global cybersecurity company, which has been operating in the market for over 21 years. Kaspersky Lab’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into next-generation security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky Lab technologies and we help 270,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at usa.kaspersky.com.