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DDoS Attacks Increasingly Blended Multiple Attack Vectors in Q3 2017

Posted By

eSecurityPlanet

On

December 18, 2017

According to Nexusguard's Q3 2017 Threat Report, 55 percent of DDoS attacks in the third quarter of the year were multi-vector attacks, blending UDP-flood, NTP amplification and other attack vectors.

The report, based on an analysis of more than 9,600 attacks, found that hackers launched 10 times as many network time protocol (NTP) amplification attacks during Q3 2017 as in Q3 2016. The third quarter also saw a 68.7 percent increase in universal datagram protocol (UDP) attacks.

The overall number of DDoS attacks rose 15.6 percent over the previous quarter.

"Our Q1 predictions that UDP-based attacks originating from NTP vulnerabilities would increase came true, as we observed NTP amplification reach a new high with a 425 percent jump compared to Q2," Nexusguard CTO Juniman Kasman said in a statement. "Additionally, multi-vector attacks created higher levels of difficulty in differentiating attack traffic from normal traffic, overwhelming traditional mitigation methods."
 
To protect against these types of attacks, organizations need to develop coordinated efforts to uncover new threats, remedy affected apps and ensure mitigation methods can flex and suppress growing attacks," Kasman added.

China was responsible for almost 21 percent of DDoS attacks worldwide in the third quarter, followed by the U.S. at 15 percent.