DDoS attacks calm

According to research from NETSCOUT’s ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT), (www.netscout.com) the number of global Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks that took place in the second quarter of 2021 decreased from the record-breaking numbers that were seen in the first quarter of the year.

According to NETSCOUT’s latest blog post (www.netscout.com/blog/asert/our-new-ddos-normal-isnt-all-normal) on this subject, threat actors launched 2,488,048 DDoS attacks in Q2, a 13% decrease compared with Q1’s extraordinary number of 2,863,882.  Although attack frequency has dropped, these figures are nowhere near the attack numbers that were considered normal prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The second quarter numbers from 2021 showed a continued high level of activity, with 13% more attacks in 2021 than 2019.

“The pandemic’s long tail of cyberthreat innovation will likely continue well into 2021 as cybercriminals continue to discover and weaponize new attack vectors that exploit pandemic-related vulnerabilities,” says the blog.