Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are now regularly exceeding the 100 Gbps threshold and have been measured at up to 325 Gbps, according to Arbor Networks. There were 72 attacks measured at over 100 Gbps in Q1, however the number dropped to 39 attacks at this level for Q2.
“Following on from the storm of NTP reflection attacks in Q1 volumetric DDoS attacks continued to be a problem well into the second quarter, with an unprecedented 100 attacks over 100GB/sec reported so far this year. We’ve also already seen more than twice the number of attacks over 20GB/sec than we saw in the whole of last year,” said Arbor Networks Director of Solutions Architects Darren Anstee. “The frequency of very large attacks continues to be an issue, and organizations should take an integrated, multi-layered approach to protection. Even organizations with significant amounts of Internet connectivity can now see that capacity exhausted relatively easily by the attacks that are going on out there.”
Some highlights from the Arbor study:
- 1H 2014 saw the most volumetric DDoS attacks ever, with more than 100 events over 100GB/sec reported so far this year
- At the mid-point of 2014, 2x the number of events over 20GB/sec have been reported, as compared to all of 2013
- The largest reported attack in Q2 was 154.69GB/sec, down 101% from Q1 2014. This was an NTP reflection attack targeting a destination in Spain.
- NTP reflection attacks are still significant, but size and scope is down versus Q1 2014. Average NTP traffic volumes are falling back globally, but still not back to the levels of November 2013 (pre the start of NTP attack proliferation)
- Q2 2014 saw fewer very large attacks – with average attack size down by 47% compared to Q1 2014