Dive Brief:
- Distributed denial of service attacks during the first half of 2024 have more than doubled since the latter half of 2023, rising 106%, researchers said in a report Thursday from Zayo Group. The report is based on more than 62,000 threat detections among Zayo customers during the first half of the year.
- DDoS attacks have also gained in intensity year over year, each lasting about 45 minutes in the first half of this year, according to the report. The attacks are costing organizations about $270,000 per attack, or about $6,000 per minute.
- The report comes just weeks after Microsoft disclosed a major DDoS attack in late July that took down its Azure and 365 platforms for about eight hours. Microsoft said it plans to enhance additional validation on its Azure network by November and will also improve monitoring.
Dive Insight:
Telecom remains the most targeted industry by DDoS, according to Zayo, making up 57% of attacks. However manufacturing is now facing the largest attacks, taking over that spot from the retail industry. Healthcare is also facing more severe attacks, according to the report.
The report follows an alarming resurgence in DDoS activity last year, as attack volume and capabilities showed significant gains.
DDoS attacks reached an all-time high in 2023, according to Cloudflare. Attackers took advantage of the novel HTTP/2 Rapid Reset zero-day vulnerability.
A March report from Akamai and FS-ISAC showed a surge in DDoS attacks against the financial services sector.
