Some of our customers and suppliers have also suffered DDoS attacks. But what was a DDos attack again?

Denial-of-service attacks (DoS attacks) and distributed-denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks) are attempts to make a computer, computer network or service unavailable or more difficult to access for its intended clients.[1] The difference between a ‘regular’ DoS attack and a distributed-DoS attack is that in the latter case, multiple computers simultaneously carry out the attack on their target.

The report from antivirus software producer Kaspersky say the following; The Q2 2020 DDoS attacks report has revealed that the number of DDoS attacks tripled in the second quarter of 2020 compared to Q2 2019. According to Kaspersky, this increase can be attributed to the impact of COVID-19, as both cybercriminals and their targets have had to rethink their summer plans.

The pandemic and subsequent restrictions on social distance have significantly changed people's lives. Also in terms of vacation plans. Many are spending their days off in ‘staycation’ mode or have canceled their planned trips. Among other things, this has led to an increased number of DDoS attacks.

The number of attacks Kaspersky DDoS Protection detected and blocked in Q2 2020 is 217% higher, compared to the same period of 2019. Also, the number of attacks in Q2 of this year increased slightly compared to the first quarter. These results differ from the annual trends that Kaspersky usually sees. Normally, the number of DDoS attacks varies seasonally. At the beginning of the year, the number is higher because it is a peak period for business. In late spring and summer, the number of attacks starts to decrease. For example, in Q2 2019, the number of attacks decreased by 39%, compared to Q1 2019 and in 2018, the difference between the two quarters was 34%.

This trend is reflected in the number of requests received by bots from C & C servers that were intercepted and analyzed by the Kaspersky DDoS Intelligence system. The average number of daily attacks in the second quarter increased by nearly 30%, compared to what happened in the first quarter. Also, the highest number of attacks per day was almost 300 in Q2 (recorded on April 9, 2020), while the record in Q1 2020 was 242 attacks.

Source: ICT magazine

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