Akamai Publishes Prolexic Global DDoS Attack Report

Akamai Technologies has announced availability of the Prolexic Q1 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report. Prolexic Technologies, now part of Akamai, is a recognized leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, and has produced the quarterly Global DDoS Attack Report since 2011.
 “In Q1, DDoS attackers relied less upon traditional botnet infection in favor of reflection and amplification techniques, a trend Prolexic has been seeing for some time,” said Stuart Scholly, Senior vice president and General Manager of Security at Akamai Technologies. “Instead of using a network of zombie computers, the newer DDoS toolkits abuse Internet protocols that are available on open or vulnerable servers and devices. We believe this approach can lead to the Internet becoming a ready-to-use botnet for malicious actors.”
 
Prolexic has observed the most abused protocols to be Character Generator (CHARGEN), Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Domain Name System (DNS). These protocols, which are all based on the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), may be favored as they allow attackers to hide their identity. In addition, amplification-based attacks can deliver a massive flood of data at the target while requiring only a relatively small output from the source.
 This quarter saw more than half of the DDoS attack traffic aimed at the Media and Entertainment industry. This one industry was targeted by 54 percent of the malicious packets mitigated by Prolexic during active DDoS attacks in Q1.