DDoS Attacks Triple in Size as Ransom Demands Re-Emerge

The last quarter of 2020 has seen a wave of web application attacks which have used ransom letters to target businesses across a number of industries.

According to research from Akamai, the largest of these attacks sent over 200Gbps of traffic at their targets as part of a sustained campaign of higher Bits Per Second (BPS) and Packets Per Second (PPS) than similar attacks had displayed a few weeks prior.

“Prior to August, the signal vectors had been primarily used to target the gaming industry,” the company claimed. “Starting in August, these attacks abruptly swung to financial organizations, and later in the cycle, multiple other verticals.”

Akamai explained that none of the vectors involved in these series of attacks were new, as most of the traffic was generated by reflectors and systems that were used to amplify traffic. “Seeing a common set of protocols being used as amplifiers in a DDoS campaign is, by itself, an indicator of new tools, or configurations, being used by criminals, rather than an indicator of an extortion campaign,” it said.

However, multiple organizations began to receive targeted emails with threats of DDoS attacks, where this would be launched unless a ransom amount was paid. Richard Meeus, director of security technology and strategy at Akamai, said ..

Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.