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A Look at Recent DDoS Attacks and the Cyberattack Landscape in 2022 So Far

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If you’re online, the chances that your business will not be affected by a cyberattack in some way are very slim. Cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and many IT leaders admittedly aren’t prepared to face current and future threats.

DDoS attacks have quickly become one of the most debilitating cyberattack types on businesses. These attacks are advanced yet cheap to deploy and have the potential to cause great damage to targets. Bad actors can purchase a DDoS attack for as little as $10 and implement it in as little as ten minutes. Whether a DDoS attack is used for the primary purpose of damaging your reputation or is simply a distraction from a much larger cybercrime, a DDoS attack will cost your business time, money, and resources.

To learn more about how DDoS attackers targeted our DDoS Protection customers, we gathered insights from attacks during the first half of 2022. In this blog, we explore the top takeaways from these insights.

The education sector experienced the most frequent attacks

Schools today rely on a functioning network to do everything from grading papers to giving live video instruction. Any network downtime can be debilitating.

The education sector has faced a wave of cyberattacks, including DDoS attacks, in recent years as reliance on Internet-connected solutions in schools has risen. Our research found that customers in the education sector faced the highest number of attacks when compared to other industries in the first half of 2022.

Average number of DDoS attacks chart

Because DDoS attacks are so inexpensive to purchase, even students can take down their school’s network. This fact could explain why we saw the most attacks among customers in this industry.

The healthcare sector faced the longest DDoS attacks

The healthcare industry has grappled with an extremely challenging few years. On top of a global pandemic and a burnt-out labor force, healthcare systems must also contend with network outages due to DDoS attacks. In the case of hospitals and other vital healthcare institutions, whether the network operates or not can mean life or death for patients.

Finding the weakest network path to access this information takes time. Attackers who want to do real human damage or expose security vulnerabilities choose healthcare organizations for prolonged attacks.

Telecommunications and government industries faced the largest DDoS attacks

While the education sector faced the most attacks and the healthcare sector faced the longest, telecommunications and government customers faced the largest attacks. These sectors face the largest attacks likely because they are the largest targets.

Taking down a telecommunications company’s network will have an impact on many other companies that depend on them for Internet services. This makes them attractive targets for DDoS attackers.

Government organizations, on the other hand, find themselves targets of DDoS attacks because of the confidentiality and importance of the information they hold. Attackers have more to gain with these attacks and they often require a lot of DDoS traffic to take down the network. This makes them more difficult attacks.

88% of DDoS attacks lasted less than 15 minutes

Our team found that the vast majority of attacks our customers faced lasted under 15 minutes.

DDoS chart2 forexport

Shorter attacks can still have a major impact on victims. Just a ten-minute attack can take down a network for hours. However, shorter attacks can also be distractions or precursors to larger, even more damaging attacks. These shorter attacks can be used to find weaknesses in cybersecurity defenses to help attackers better prepare for the larger attack.

Most DDoS attacks happened when they would hurt customers the most – during the work week and work day

Perhaps unsurprisingly, DDoS attackers planned their attacks for the times when employees and businesses need the network most and would be most hurt by a DDoS attack. Our team found that the majority of attacks on our customers occurred Monday through Friday during work hours in the U.S.

Gather all of Zayo’s DDoS attack insights from the first half of 2022

No matter the size of your business, what industry you’re in, or how technically-savvy your IT team is, your business is at risk of a DDoS attack. Investing in a DDoS protection solution that can mitigate your risk of harm from an attack at the network level is a good place to start.

Interested in More?

Check out our eBook for insights about the DDoS threat landscape.