Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) perpetrators changed tactics in the third quarter of 2013 to boost attack sizes and hide their identities, according to Prolexic Technologies.
“This quarter, the major concern is that reflection attacks are accelerating dramatically, increasing 265% (year-on-year) and up 70% over the previous quarter,” said Stuart Scholly, president of Prolexic.
“The bottom line is that DDoS attackers have found an easier, more efficient way to launch high bandwidth attacks with smaller botnets and that’s concerning,” added Scholly.
Prolexic’s latest report finds that attackers are flocking to so-called distributed reflection denial of service (DrDoS) attacks as they provide the benefit of obscuring the source of the attack (anonymity), while enabling the bandwidth of intermediary victims to be used, often unknowingly, to multiply the size of the attack (amplification).
In DrDos attacks, there are always two victims, the intended target and the intermediary. The rise in DrDoS attacks should come as no surprise, as attack methods that inflict high damage with low effort will always be popular, according to Prolexic
Attacks against Prolexic clients remained high in the third quarter and represented the highest total for any quarter.
Of note, more than 62% of DDoS attacks originated from China, far surpassing all other countries. Findings are based on data gathered from attacks launched during the quarter against Prolexic’s global client base.
The largest attack Prolexic mitigated during this quarter was directed at a European media company, peaking at 120 Gbps