DDoS attacks rise 40% in Q2 2023, affecting banks, gaming & e-commerce

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According to a study recently released by Qrator Labs, the number of DDoS attacks has increased by 40% over the past six months, increasingly targeting diverse industries including banking, e-commerce and education.

Other report highlights:

Diversification of targets: The data indicates that while banks remain the most frequent target, accounting for 37.6% of all attacks, a significant increase in attacks on other sectors like e-commerce (13.68%), educational services (11.32%) and the gaming industry (9.61%) has been observed.
Rise in UDP flood attacks: The figures show an almost twofold rise in UDP flood, from 37.44% to 60.1%. This growth in UDP flood metrics is attributed to changes in the infrastructure of most businesses, significantly influencing the nature of DDoS attacks. Since the pandemic began in 2020, many companies have shifted to a remote work format. This often implies a transition to UDP, which boosts application performance and provides necessary scalability, especially when clients use mobile internet or Wi-Fi for connectivity, and is also the most affordable and rapid means of data transmission.
Shorter, but more frequent attacks: Although the total number of DDoS attacks increased, their average duration has decreased by 29.15%, down to 47 minutes. The maximum duration also dropped significantly from 42 hours in Q1 to 20.7 hours in Q2.
Bot activity intensifies: Bot attacks increased by over 13 million requests per day, most notably in the betting and online retail sectors. A record-breaking bot attack was registered in the betting sector in May, with 33 million bot requests.

ON DEMAND: Business-impacting events such as severe weather, man-made disasters, and supply chain disruption are increasing in frequency and making impacts around the globe.

In today's rapidly evolving security landscape, organizations face an ever-growing array of disruptive events, security threats and risks. Traditional reactive approaches to security intelligence often leave businesses vulnerable and ill-prepared to anticipate and mitigate emerging threats that could impact the safety of their people, facilities or operations.