SECURITY NEWS
Cloudflare report reveals upsurge in DDoS attacks
In its ninth report , Cloudflare has uncovered evidence of an evolution of cyberthreats . With an upsurge of DDoS attacks of over 600 % since the last quarter , new statistics of application-layer and networklayer targets revealed the vulnerabilities of online media companies , telecommunications and Internet technology industries .
Cloudflare , the security , performance and reliability company helping to build a better Internet , has announced its DDoS report for the first quarter of 2022 , the ninth in total so far .
This report includes new data points and insights both in the application-layer and network-layer sections – as observed across the global Cloudflare network between January and March 2022 . The report is based on DDoS attacks that were automatically detected and mitigated by Cloudflare ’ s DDoS Protection systems .
The first quarter of 2022 saw a massive spike in application-layer DDoS attacks , but a decrease in the total number of network-layer DDoS attacks . Despite the decrease , Cloudflare has seen volumetric DDoS attacks surge by up to 645 % QoQ and the company mitigated a new zeroday reflection attack with an amplification factor of 220 billion percent .
In the Russian and Ukrainian cyberspace , the most targeted industries were online media and broadcast media . The Azerbaijan and Palestine-based Cloudflare data centres has seen enormous spikes in DDoS activity – indicating the presence of botnets operating from within .
Highlights of the DDoS Report
The Russian and Ukrainian cyberspace
• Russian Online Media companies were the most targeted industries within Russia in Q1 . The next most targeted was the Internet industry , then cryptocurrency and then retail . While many attacks that targeted Russian cryptocurrency companies originated in Ukraine or the US , another major source of attacks was from within Russia itself
• Most HTTP DDoS attacks that targeted Russian companies originated from Germany , the US , Singapore , Finland , India , the Netherlands and Ukraine
• HTTP DDoS attacks targeting Ukrainian companies focused on broadcast media , media and publishing , Internet , online media , media productions and computer software companies
• Attacks on Ukraine targeted broadcast media and publishing websites and
Cloudflare has seen volumetric DDoS attacks surge by up to 645 %.
seem to have been more distributed , originating from more countries – which may indicate the use of global botnets .
Still , most of the attack traffic originated from the US , Russia , Germany , China , the UK and Thailand
Ransom DDoS attacks
In these kinds of attacks , the enterprise receives a threat or a ransom note demanding payment in exchange to stop the DDoS attack .
• January 2022 saw the largest number of respondents reporting receiving a ransom letter in Q1 – Almost one out of every five customers ( 17 %)
• That figure drastically dropped to 6 % in February and then to 3 % in March
• When compared to previous quarters , we can see that in total , in Q1 , only 10 % of respondents reported a ransom DDoS attack ; a 28 % decrease YoY and 52 % decrease QoQ
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