DDoS attacks increased by 50% YoY, with Cloudflare automatically mitigating a total of 4.5 million DDoS attacks, according to Cloudflare’s quarterly DDoS threat report for Q1 2024.
Cloud cybersecurity company Clouflare lists key insights from the first quarter of 2024 including:
- 2024 started with a bang. Cloudflare’s defense systems automatically mitigated 4.5 million DDoS attacks during the first quarter — representing a 50% year-over-year (YoY) increase.
- DNS-based DDoS attacks increased by 80% YoY and remain the most prominent attack vector.
- DDoS attacks on Sweden surged by 466% after its acceptance to the NATO alliance, mirroring the pattern observed during Finland's NATO accession in 2023.
- Mirai Botnet Activity: The Mirai botnet remains active and contributed significantly to the volume of attacks. Four out of every 100 HTTP DDoS attacks, and two out of every 100 L3/4 DDoS attacks are launched by a Mirai-variant botnet.
- Industry: Gaming and Gambling industry was most industry targeted globally, In second place, the Information Technology and Internet industry, and in third, Marketing and
- Advertising. In Oceania (including Australia), Telecomuncations was the most attacked industry.
- Impact on Sweden: Attacks surged by 466% following its NATO acceptance, similar to Finland’s experience during its NATO accession in 2023.
According to Cloudflare, despite the surge in DNS attacks and due to the overall increase in all types of DDoS attacks, the share of each attack type, “remarkably, remains the same as the final quarter of 2023”.
“HTTP DDoS attacks remain at 37% of all DDoS attacks, DNS DDoS attacks at 33%, and the remaining 30% is left for all other types of L3/4 attacks, such as SYN Flood and UDP Floods,” notes Cloudflare.
To see the full Cloudflare report: DDoS threat report for 2024 Q1