In terms of direct numbers, in 2021 there were less distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and the average size of attacks has also decreased. But according to new research, 13% fewer DDoS attacks in 2021 are something to rejoice over when cybersecurity teams still jump to pre-epidemic levels with the amount of attacks.
Nexusguard analysts say the top DDoS attack vectors in 2021 were the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) attack, the Domain Name System (DNS) extension attack, and the Transmission Control Protocol Recognition (ACK) attack.
Significantly, ACK attacks are on the rise, accounting for 9.7% of DDoS attacks in 2021, up from 3.7% in 2020. The number of DNS and UDP DDoS attacks was still high enough to keep them in the top two, but both accounted for one.
Although the average attack size has decreased by 50% compared to 2021, the maximum attack size has almost tripled, so really large attacks are still a problem.
“Attack vectors are also in flux, as UDP attacks are still the most common, the TCP ACK, which can significantly extend the impact of a DDoS event with a small amount of traffic, has increased significantly,” said Juniman Kasman, chief technology officer at Nexusguard. New DDoS research.
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