Link11, a leader in cloud-based anti-DDoS protection, has released its Q3 DDoS Report, revealing that the scale and volume of attacks continued to grow in Europe during Q3. The LSOC registered 15,934 attacks in the 3rd quarter of 2018, an increase of 71% over the previous quarter. The average DDoS attack volume also increased by 40% in Q3, to 4.6 Gbps. Attacks are also becoming increasingly complex, with 59% of incidents using two or more vectors – up from 46% in Q2.
The highest-volume attack observed by Link11 in 2018 rose from 212 Gbps in Q1 to 371 Gbps in Q3, an increase of 75%. In addition, there were a further 35 attacks with bandwidth peaks above 100 Gbps. The Link11 Security Operation Center (LSOC) also registered a sharp increase in attacks with bandwidth peaks of between 5 and 10 Gbps.
Multivector attacks, which accounted for 59% of all attacks, were also a major threat. 37% of all attacks featured 3 different vectors – more than double the number of triple-vector attacks seen in Q2 (16%).
The LSOC also observed that attacks are most frequent on Fridays and Sundays, with the level of attacks declining during the business week. Attackers targeted organizations most frequently between 4pm and midnight Central European Time, with attack volumes at their lowest between 5am and 10 am CET.
The report also revealed:
Aatish Pattni, Regional Director UK & Ireland for Link11, commented:”The structure and composition of DDoS attacks is constantly changing, but the goal remains the same: to interrupt servers, networks or data streams. Over half of attacks during Q3 were multi-vector, making them harder to defend against, and they are growing in volume, too, meaning they can easily overwhelm defences”
“To stop these attacks disrupting business operations, organizations need proactive protection that tracks and responds to evolving attack scenarios and patterns automatically, using advanced machine-learning techniques.”
More information is available in the full Link11 DDoS report for Q3 2018. Current data on DDoS attacks, attempts, and numbers can be found in the Link11 DDoS blog.