DDoS attacks target financial services industry in Q1: Prolexic Technologies
Prolexic Technologies has released its Quarterly Global Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack Report showing that attackers increasingly targeted financial services firms during Q1 2012.
The number of attacks logged has increased almost threefold from last quarter, while malicious packet traffic has increased by 3000 per cent.
"This quarter was characterised by extremely high volumes of malicious traffic directed at our financial services clients," said Prolexic vice president of operations Neal Quinn," who added that the company expected attacks to spread to other industries as the year unfolded.
In Q1 2012, 5.7 quadrillion bits of data and 1.1 trillion malicious packets were identified and successfully mitigated by Prolexic, compared with approximately 168 trillion bits of data and 14 billion packets of malicious traffic in Q4 2011.
Compared to Q1 2011 data, Prolexic reported a 25 per cent increase in the total number of attacks and Layer Seven attacks with shorter attack durations. UDP Floods have declined while GET Floods have increased.
The average attack duration has also declined from Q4 2011, and although China is still the top source of attacks, the United States and Russia have moved up the rankings.
SYN Floods have overtaken UDP Floods as the "go to" attack type, according to the report, which also predicts the continued decline of average attack durations with higher traffic volumes.
Infrastructure layer attacks targeting Layer Three and Four continue to be the choice of attackers, although an increase in Layer Seven attacks indicates there will be a gradual shift to Layer Seven attacks over time.
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