The massification of Internet connectivity and Smartphones, the proliferation of IT solutions for any need, millions of websites to access at any time, and chips and more chips running on servers, PC’s and all kinds of devices, seem to show a scenario where technology solves countless problems for our civilization. But unfortunately, this situation goes hand in hand with a considerable increase in the actions of hackers or computer spies, who seek to benefit from and develop their attack vectors by taking advantage of every vulnerability they find.
Different organizations or companies specialized in ethical hacking periodically provide reports on the degree of evolution of attacks, seeking to raise awareness and prevent society from them. Link11, a leading European IT security provider in the field of cyber security based in Germany with presence in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, has published an important report about DDoS attacks during 2021, which we will summarize below in its most essential aspects.
Before we begin, it is important to understand what a DDos attack, or denial of service attack, is, where the resources of an IT platform, whether servers or connectivity, are saturated in such a way as to make it inaccessible to its users. But this is not the most serious thing, according to Link 11’s report, during a DDoS attack, hackers can penetrate and attack network security through the back door undetected. In other words, according to Link11, DDoS attacks drastically alter traffic profiles and create noi-
se that obscures the data exfiltration, which is the real goal in these attacks.
Here is more information from this comprehensive IT security analysis
2021 saw a year-on-year increase in DDoS attacks over 2020
-Highest attack reached around 4.5 Tbps, while the Average attack bandwidth peak was from 161 Gbps to 437 Gbps.
Ransom DDoS attacks were a trend in 2021, where the aggressiveness of extortions increased significantly, reaching up to $4.5 million in Bitcoins. In this type of crime, hackers can for example make a small demonstration of their potential, asking for money not to continue with it.
Link11’s report counts the most relevant cases of 2021, among which stand out those suffered by Icelandic telecommunications companies, portals for vaccine appointments against COVID-19, the Italian Parliament, attacks against the lighting system in Puerto Rico, against the banking system in New Zealand, educational services in Switzerland and important Web Hosting companies.
Marc Wilczek, CEO, Link11, summarized the situation this way.
“Private and business life is increasingly shifting into the digital space. This offers more and more attack surfaces. Our figures make it clear: not only the number of DDoS attacks is increasing, but their DNA is also changing. Complexity is growing, new attack vectors and methods such as “carpet bombing” are becoming established.”
Regarding prevention, Marc Wilczek finally added:
“In contrast, existing security tools are reaching their limits. This makes maximum precision and speed in detecting and defending against attacks all the more important.”
