Verisign Q3 DDoS Trends Report shows Sharp Rise in Attack Size

The quarterly Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) trends report published by Verisign for Q3 (1 July 2015 to 30 September 2015) shows that in addition to a rise in frequency of attacks, there has been a sharp hike in the size of DDoS attacks.

In terms of size, more than one-third of attacks peaked over 5 Gbps while one in five attacks peaked over 10 Gbps, says the report. The number of attacks that peaked in the 5 to 10 Gbps range and over 10 Gbps range more than doubled from the previous quarter, it added. The report said attacks mitigated by Verisign in the third quarter yielded an average peak size of 7.03 Gbps, which was a 27 percent increase in average attack size compared to Q2 2015.

Verisign claimed that increase in the share of large size attacks has a direct impact on choosing the DDoS protection model. The “distribution of attack size is an insightful metric for enterprises as they

consider adoption of an on-premise, cloud or hybrid DDoS protection approach.” The report said.

The size distribution suggests that, purely based on size considerations, an on-premise DDoS appliance with a 1 Gbps capacity will be ineffective in at least 59 percent of the attacks, while a 10 Gbps appliance might be ineffective in handling at least one out of every five attacks (20 percent). Hence, a cloud or a hybrid approach to DDoS protection is the best approach, it recommended.

Here are some of the other findings that Verisign quarterly DDoS trend report for the period starting July 1, 2015 and ending Sept. 30, 2015, noted

• DDoS activity increased in Q3 to the highest it has been in any quarter over the last two years.Verisign mitigated 53 percent more attacks in the third quarter this year than in the preceding quarter
• A peak volumetric DDoS attack of 60 gigabits per second (Gbps) and 12 million packets per second (Mpps) for User Datagram Protocol (UDP) floods and 34 Gbps/30 Mpps for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) floods in Q3 2015 were observed
• The average attack size increase to 7.03 Gbps, 27 percent higher than Q2 2015
• 59% of attacks peaked at more than 1 Gbps; 20% of attacks were greater than 10 Gbps
• For the fourth consecutive quarter, the industry most frequently targeted by DDoS attacks was IT Services/Cloud/SaaS, representing 29 % of mitigation activity in Q3. Media and Entertainment represented 26 % of mitigations
• The most common attacks mitigated were Network Time Protocol (NTP), Domain Name System (DNS) and Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) UDP floods, which collectively accounted for approximately 65 percent of attacks in the quarter.
• Operating systems once thought to be more secure against malware and vulnerabilities, like Linux, Mac OS X and iOS, are increasingly becoming the target of bot herders and malware authors for cyber crime and hacktivist activities. 

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