DDoS attacks, mapped

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have quadrupled in recent months and peretrators have targeted network defence equipment, Prolexic says.

Research by the DDoS-prevention company found the volume of attack attacks were up in the last quarter.

China had the two largest Autonomous Systems responsible for DDoS attacks, followed by Turkey, India and Pakistan.

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The average attack duration was 1.4 days and an average of 1.3Gbps. Of the total attacks, about 24 per cent were SYN floods, 22 per cent ICMP floods and 19 per cent UDP floods.

Network layer (Layer 3) attacks were the most common, making up 83 per cent of total attacks, with application layer (Layer 7) attacks accounting for the remaining 17 per cent.

Prolexic CTO Paul Sop said most technologies cannot handle the high capacity attacks.

“For example, popular 10Gbps appliances often exhibit peak handling rates of less than five million packets per second. The prevalence of high PPS SYN floods indicates a change in strategy where attacks are less sophisticated, but more deadly.”

Graphics extracted from SC Magazine's upcoming print edition. Grab a copy during AusCERT Sydney.

With Dan Raywood.

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