There were huge advancements in the adoption of technology during the pandemic as companies realised its necessity with employees being forced to work from home. Unfortunately, whilst there was a rise in digitisation, there was an equal rise in scams and hacking attempts across the globe. One of the most common means of attack was through distributed denial of service (DDoS) committed by cybercriminals who want to disrupt online-dependent businesses.
According to the data analysed by the Atlas VPN team, 65% of all distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are directed at the US or UK. Computers and the internet industry is the favourite among cybercriminals.
The numbers are based on the data provided on the Imperva website. They collect DDoS threat statistics every month: here are the June 2021 results.
The United States was a target of 35% of all DDoS attacks in June 2021. Cybercriminals have launched DDoS attacks against Amazon Web Services, Google, and other prominent US-based companies in the past. However, as these businesses have extensive resources, they withstood the attack without noticeable disruptions.
The United Kingdom comes second as it fell victim to 29% of all DDoS attacks. As the UK has many huge businesses, they often are targeted by hackers for valuable data or even a ransom. Threat actors claim that they would not stop a DDoS attack unless their ransom demands are met.
China was attacked by 18% of all DDoS attacks in June 2021. Usually, China is the one behind the attacks, however, they do get hit back with a DDoS threat occasionally. Attacks from and to China happen primarily due to political reasons, to interrupt some government agency.
Japan and Germany were each struck by about 3% of all DDoS attacks. The Tokyo Olympics in Japan could raise cyber threats, as hackers could benefit from disrupting the event.
Clear DDoS attack target
Some businesses are more heavily targeted due to the damage they would cause if hackers disrupted their service. At other times, cybercriminals launch DDoS threats because of the competitive nature of the attacked industry itself.
The most attacked industry was the computers and internet sector, targeted by 83% of all DDoS attacks. Domain providers, web hosts, and internet service providers often become the victims of DDoS attacks. By suspending their systems, hackers also disrupt all other companies using attacked business services.
The games industry is the second most attacked sector as it suffered 9% of all DDoS attacks. Some gamers launch DDoS attacks against other players to lower their connection speed and gain a competitive advantage. With slower connection speed, you may experience lag and delay making the game unplayable.
Gambling sites experienced 6% of all DDoS attacks in June 2021. Often casinos hire cybercriminals to disrupt their competition’s business. By launching a DDoS attack, hackers could make rival gambling websites unavailable, make them lose profit and customers’ trust.
The business industry was the target of nearly 2% of all DDoS attacks, while hackers launched an attack on the finance sector almost 1% of the time.
DDoS attacks are a severe threat. They lead to the interruption of the website or service, which could cause massive financial damages to the business. To stop the assault, hackers often request a ransom, making it even harder for the company.
