A recent Netscout study titled Threat Intelligence Reporttracks the number of denial of service (DDoS) attacks that took place in 2021. According to the results of this survey, cybercriminals launched 9.75 million DDoS attacks in the year 2021.
A 14% higher number of attacks compared to 2019
Down 3% from 2020 (when AWS suffered the biggest DDoS attack in history), the all-time high, but analysts see attacks continuing at a higher rate 14% to pre-pandemic levels. According to the Netscout study, the second half of 2021 was marked by the implementation “extremely powerful botnet armies”. New proof of the ingenuity of cybercriminals who are constantly innovating to find new techniques and surprise cybersecurity professionals.
Roni Carta, 19 years old and ethical hacker
Richard Hummel, head of threat intelligence at Netscout, believes that “While it is tempting to view the decline in total attacks as a decline in cybercriminal activity, we have seen significantly higher activity compared to pre-pandemic levels”. As we know that the year 2020 was exceptional and even abnormal on all levels, we must refer to 2019 to be able to compare. In fact, 2021 has seen a rise in DDoS extortion and ransomware.
The massive development of DDoS-For-Hire
Well-known gangs like Avaddon, REvil, BlackCat, AvosLocker and Suncrypt, have been identified using DDoS to extort their victims. A service provider in the field of telephony even reported a loss of between 8 and 10 million euros due to DDoS attacks. Netscout reviewed 19 DDoS-For-Hire services, a software-inspired model that allows anyone to use DDoS attacks. Together, they offer over 200 types of attacks.
Asia saw the biggest increase in 2021. Attacks were up 7%. Certainly because of a tense geopolitical context in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is the region that has seen the highest increase in the number of attacks in annual variation compared to other regions of the world. The study shows that hackers target certain activities first. The hardest hit sectors are software publishers (attacks are up 606%), insurance agencies and brokers (+257%), computer manufacturers (+162%) and colleges, universities and vocational education establishments (+102%).