Huge increase in major DDoS attacks - report

There was a 140 per cent spike in major distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the last three months of 2016, driven by unsecured Internet of Things (IoT) devices, according to new research by Akamai.

The firm’s 2016 State of the Internet / Security Report shows attacks greater than 100 Gbps are increasingly becoming the norm with Akamai warning companies to focus on their online security.

Read hSo’s blog post on the major DDoS attacks of 2016.

Attacks greater than 100 Gbps increased 140 per cent year-over-year from Q4 2015 with the largest DDoS attack, from a non-IoT botnet called Spike, peaking at a whopping 517 Gbps.

However, seven of the 12 Q4 2016 ‘mega attacks’ - those greater than 100 Gbps - can be “directly attributed” to Mirai, a form of malware.

The report also found that most web application attacks come from the US, rising 72 per cent from Q3 2016.

“As we saw with the Mirai botnet attacks during the third quarter, unsecured IoT devices continued to drive significant DDoS attack traffic,” said Martin McKeay, senior security advocate and senior editor of the report.

“With the predicted exponential proliferation of these devices, threat agents will have an expanding pool of resources to carry out attacks, validating the need for companies to increase their security investments. Additional emerging system vulnerabilities are expected before devices become more secure.”