The year 2020 has provided ample opportunities for cybercriminals to make merry. In what is believed to be the largest DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) ever, certain websites hosted by a larger service provider were targeted by cybercriminals.
What transpired?
- Even though not much has been disclosed, but it is discovered that these attacks on particular websites were chosen because of social reasons.
- The hosting provider was hit with a 1.44tbps DDoS attack in the first attack.
- Another website hosted by the second provider faced a malicious attack with 500mbps.
The technicalities of the attack
- The attackers had studied the victim and the mode of attack well, which was pretty evident by the variety of data types that were used during the attack.
- These attacks contained 9 different traffic types and the traffic surge lasted for an hour, while a typical attack consists of only 2-3 traffic types.
- The devices used to execute these attacks by the threat actors were sourced from different regions.
Some high-profile attacks from the past
- It’s a sin to not mention the 2018 1.3tbps DDoS attack on Github while talking about the largest DDoS attacks to have carried out by threat actors.
- Earlier this year, an attempt to disable the HHS Website was made.
- A Paris-based group of hospitals Assistance Publique-Hospitaux de Paris, suffered at the hands of cybercriminals as they successfully carried out a DDoS attack against them earlier this year.
The bitter truth of the ongoing year is that due to the pandemic the world has seen an abrupt shift to the new routine of working from home. Needless to say, this has rendered all of us to be completely dependent on the internet to earn our bread and butter. People have been, using the internet for shopping, ordering groceries, entertainment, and even studying online. This has been reflected in the goals of the cybercriminals and the recent DDoS attacks. These attacks can be dealt with by an organization by putting in place preconditioned controls to block the malicious traffic in order to prevent their services from getting affected.
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