CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai
Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud
services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and
business applications, today announced availability of the Prolexic
Q1 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report. Prolexic Technologies,
now part of Akamai, is a recognized leader in Distributed Denial of
Service (DDoS) protection services, and has produced the quarterly
Global DDoS Attack Report since 2011. The report, which provides
analysis and insight into the global DDoS threat landscape, can be
downloaded at www.prolexic.com/attackreports.
"In Q1, DDoS attackers relied less upon traditional botnet
infection in favor of reflection and amplification techniques, a
trend Prolexic has been seeing for some time," said Stuart Scholly, senior vice president and
general manager of Security at Akamai Technologies. "Instead
of using a network of zombie computers, the newer DDoS toolkits
abuse Internet protocols that are available on open or vulnerable
servers and devices. We believe this approach can lead to the
Internet becoming a ready-to-use botnet for malicious actors."
Prolexic has observed the most abused protocols to be Character
Generator (CHARGEN), Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Domain Name
System (DNS). These protocols, which are all based on the User
Datagram Protocol (UDP), may be favored as they allow attackers to
hide their identity. In addition, amplification-based attacks can
deliver a massive flood of data at the target while requiring only
a relatively small output from the source.
New reflection and amplification attack tools can deliver a
powerful punch. Q1 saw a 39 percent increase in average bandwidth
and the largest-ever DDoS attack to cross the Prolexic DDoS
mitigation network. This attack involved multiple reflection
techniques combined with a traditional botnet-based application
attack to generate peak traffic of more than 200 Gbps (gigabits per
second) and 53.5 Mpps (million packets per second).
This quarter saw more than half of the DDoS attack traffic aimed
at the Media and Entertainment industry. This one industry was
targeted by 54 percent of the malicious packets mitigated
by Prolexic during active DDoS attacks in Q1.
Highlights from Prolexic's Q4 2014 Global DDoS Attack
Report:
Compared to Q1 2013
- 47 percent increase in total DDoS attacks
- 9 percent decrease in average attack bandwidth
- 68 percent increase in infrastructure (Layer 3 & 4)
attacks
- 21 percent decrease in application (Layer 7) attacks
- 50 percent decrease in average attack duration: 35 vs. 17
hours
- 133 percent increase in average peak bandwidth
Compared to Q4 2013
- 18 percent increase in total DDoS attacks
- 39 percent increase in average attack bandwidth
- 35 percent increase in infrastructure (Layer 3 & 4)
attacks
- 36 percent decrease in application (Layer 7) attacks
- 24 percent decrease in average attack duration: 23 vs. 17
hours
- 114 percent increase in average peak bandwidth
Analysis and emerging trends
Innovation in the DDoS marketplace has given rise to tools that
can create greater damage with fewer resources. Q1's high-volume,
infrastructure-based attacks were made possible by the availability
of easy-to-use DDoS tools from the DDoS-as-a-service marketplace.
These tools are designed by malicious hackers to deliver greater
power and convenience into the hands of less skillful
attackers.
For example, in Q1, NTP reflection attacks surged, likely due to
the availability of easy-to-use DDoS attack tools that support this
reflection technique. The NTP flood method went from accounting for
less than 1 percent of all attacks in the prior quarter to reaching
nearly the same popularity as SYN flood attacks, a perennial
favorite among DDoS attackers. Neither CHARGEN nor NTP attack
vectors were detected in Q1 2013 but accounted for 23 percent of
all infrastructure attacks mitigated by Prolexic in Q1 2014.
These DDoS trends are discussed in detail in Prolexic's Q1 2014
Global DDoS Attack Report. A complimentary copy is available as a
free PDF download at www.prolexic.com/attackreports.
Akamai and Prolexic DDoS attack reports to be merged
Akamai announced the acquisition of Prolexic in December 2013. Prolexic's Global DDoS Attack
Report and Akamai's State of the Internet Report both cover DDoS
attacks and related trends and statistics. In the coming quarters,
we will be working to consolidate these publications with the goal
of publishing a combined report that delivers an unparalleled level
of insight into the Internet threat landscape. Follow @akamai_soti
on Twitter for more information.
Prolexic, now part of Akamai, offers DDoS protection solutions
that leverage proprietary DDoS filtering techniques and the world's
largest cloud-based DDoS mitigation network. Akamai completed
the acquisition of Prolexic in February 2014. Together with
Prolexic, Akamai is providing customers with a comprehensive
portfolio of security solutions designed to defend an enterprise's
Web and IP infrastructure against application-layer, network-layer
and data center attacks delivered via the Internet. To learn
more about how Prolexic solutions stop DDoS attacks and protect
business, please visit www.prolexic.com, or follow Prolexic on
LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and @Prolexic on Twitter.
About Akamai
Akamai® is the leading provider of cloud services for
delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business
applications. At the core of the Company's solutions is the Akamai
Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with
unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai
removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile
world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to
securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is
accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world,
please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai
on Twitter.
Contacts:
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Rob Morton
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Tom Barth
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Media
Relations
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Investor
Relations
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617-444-3641
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617-274-7130
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rmorton@akamai.com
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tbarth@akamai.com
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.