Prolexic Releases Q3 Global Attack Report

PRESS RELEASE

HOLLYWOOD, FL – (October 23, 2013) – Prolexic Technologies, the global leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, today reported that DDoS perpetrators changed tactics in Q3 2013 to boost attack sizes and hide their identities. This observation is one of many key findings found in the company's Q3 2013 Global DDoS Attack Report, which was published today, and can be downloaded from www.prolexic.com/attackreports.

"This quarter, the major concern is that reflection attacks are accelerating dramatically, increasing 265% over Q3 2012 and up 70% over Q2," said Stuart Scholly, president of Prolexic. "The bottom line is that DDoS attackers have found an easier, more efficient way to launch high bandwidth attacks with smaller botnets and that's concerning."

Attackers are flocking to so-called distributed reflection denial of service (DrDoS) attacks as they provide the benefit of obscuring the source of the attack (anonymity), while enabling the bandwidth of intermediary victims to be used, often unknowingly, to multiply the size of the attack (amplification). In DrDos attacks, there are always two victims, the intended target and the intermediary.

Prolexic's latest report reveals that the total number of attacks against its clients in Q3 2013 remained high and represented the highest total for one quarter. This occurrence illustrates a consistently heightened level of DDoS activity around the world over the last six months. Of note, more than 62% of Q3 DDoS attacks originated from China, far surpassing all other countries. Findings are based on data gathered from attacks launched during the quarter against Prolexic's global client base.

For the quarter, peak bandwidth averaged 3.06 Gbps and peak packets-per-second (pps) averaged 4.22 Mpps. The largest attack Prolexic mitigated during Q3 was directed at a European media company, peaking at 120 Gbps.

Summary highlights from Prolexic's Q3 2013 Global DDoS Attack Report

Compared to Q2 2013