Enterprise clients have been hit with the highest number of DDoS attacks during the first quarter of 2013, accounting for 34% of all attacks, reporting a quarter over quarter increase of 14%, according to a new report.

The latest Akamai ‘State of the Internet’ report revealed that the commerce and media companies remained nearly constant from 2012 accounting for 32% and 21% of all attacks respectively during the quarter.

DDoS attacks during Q1

However, high tech and public sector consumers were hit with fewer attacks accounting for 7% and 4% of overall attacks respectively for Q1.

During Q1, retail organisations continued to be highly targeted by attacks within the overall commerce sector, mainly due to their reliance on Internet for sales and marketing.

Within the enterprise vertical, financial services customers were highly hit with attacks, experiencing 50% of all attacks during the quarter, which is allegedly associated with attacks carried out by Izz ad-Dim al-Qassam Cyber Fighters (aka QCF) in 2012.