The number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks across the globe rose by 22% during the second quarter of 2014, the latest Prolexic Global DDoS Attack Report revealed.
Akamai Technologies’ report added that the average DDoS attack bandwidth rose by 72%, while the average peak DDoS attack bandwidth skyrocketed to 241% increase during the quarter.
The report noted that platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors have been the main target of hackers when developing server-side botnets, and vulnerable versions of common web Content Management Systems (CMS) were their majortargets.
Akamai Technologies Security senior vice president and general manager Stuart Scholly said: "DDoS attacks have continued in high numbers and with high average and peak bandwidths.
They can take out an entire data center by overwhelming network bandwidth. Behind these powerful attacks are changing tactics to build, deploy and conceal powerful botnets. Server-side botnets are preying on web vulnerabilities and reflection and amplification tactics are allowing attackers to do more with less."
During the quarter, infrastructure (Layer 3 and 4) attacks increased by 46%, while the there was 54% drop in average attack duration from 38 to 17 hours.
With rise in use of server-based botnets, the itsoknoproblembro (Brobot) botnet has still remained a major threat as hacking attempts during the quarter indicated the existence of the botnet.
