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“While attack sizes are decreasing, we continue to see an uptick in the number of attacks as launch tools grow increasingly pervasive and easy to use and monetize,” quotes the second Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet / Security Report by Akamai Technologies, the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services.
“This commoditization renders businesses vulnerable to a higher frequency of attacks they cannot defend against on their own” adds the report. “It is important for organizations to understand what they are up against, specifically as adversaries increasingly threaten DDoS attacks for ransom.”
DDoS Attacks
- Total DDoS attacks increased 129% second quarter of 2016 from second quarter of 2015. During the second quarter, Akamai mitigated a total of 4,919 DDoS attacks.
- Largest DDoS to date at 363 Gbps on June 20th against a European media firm. At the same time, the median attack size fell by 36% to 3.85 Gbps.
- 12 attacks observed during second quarter exceeded 100 Gbps and two that reached 300 Gbps targeted the media and entertainment industry.
Web Application Attacks
- Second quarter of 2016 showed a 14% increase in total web application attacks from first quarter of 2016.
- Brazil experienced a 197% increase in attacks sourced from the region – the top country of origin for all web application attacks.
- The United States ranked second among countries for total web application attacks, saw a 13% decrease in attacks compared to first quarter of 2016.
- SQL Injection (44%) and Local File Inclusion (45%) were the two most common attack vectors in Q2.
Bot Traffic Analysis
- During one 24-hour period in second quarter, bots accounted for 43% of all web traffic across the Akamai Intelligent Platform.
Detected automation tools and scraping campaigns represented 63% of all bot traffic, a 10% increase from first quarter of 2016. These bots scrape specific websites or industry segments and do not identify their intentions and origin.
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