News
Sophisticated DDoS attacks surge in the United Kingdom and Ireland during 1H2022
October 2022 by Patrick LEBRETON
Despite a slight decrease in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack frequency in the UK and Ireland (UK&I) last year, threat actors have ramped up their nefarious activities in 1H2022 – according to NETSCOUT’s latest Threat Intelligence Report.
Ireland experienced an increase of 200 per cent in DDoS attacks during the first half of the year. Attack sophistication is also increasing, as NETSCOUT threat researchers observed powerful DDoS-capable botnets being used to launch TCP-based direct path attacks, often in tandem with major global events across politics, religion, and sports. This, of course, includes the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
As EMEA saw a seven per cent increase in DDoS attacks, the report’s key UK&I findings include:
– Ireland experienced roughly 284 attacks per day, representing an increase of 118 per cent from the last six months of 2021
– The surge in attack activity against Ireland is likely attributable to Ukrainian resources that shifted out of their original location and into cloud-based systems located in Ireland
– The UK – which almost always tops the charts in attack volume for the EMEA region – saw a little respite, with the average daily attack count decreasing to 743 attacks per day (19 per cent) from the second half of 2021. In fact, attack frequency, as well as both maximum attack size and maximum throughput fell
– Telecommunications, eCommerce and data processing and hosting services are among the most targeted sectors in 1H 2022 by number of attacks
