HOLLYWOOD, Fla.—It's getting easier for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attackers to launch large-scale assaults, according to a new study that found these hackers' efforts have more than doubled in the last year.
Prolexic Technologies' Q3 2013 Global DDoS Attack Report found that DDoS perpetrators changed tactics recently to boost attack sizes and hide their identities.
"The major concern is that reflection attacks are accelerating dramatically, increasing 265% over Q3 2012 and up 70% over Q2," said Stuart Scholly, president of Prolexic. "The bottom line is that DDoS attackers have found an easier, more efficient way to launch high bandwidth attacks with smaller botnets and that's concerning."
Prolexic explained that attackers are turning now to so-called distributed reflection denial of service (DrDoS) attacks, as they obscure the source of the attack, while enabling the bandwidth of intermediary victims to be used, often unknowingly, to multiply the size of the attack. Findings are based on data gathered from attacks launched during the quarter against Prolexic's global client base.
In Clark, N.J., DDoS attacks are a big concern to Aspire FCU, which has recently moved to a virtual business model.
CEO Thomas O'Shea said the rise in the attacks is on the $180 million CU's radar.
"When DDoS attacks initially became prevalent they targeted the largest, most publicly visible institutions. Today, with the "cost' of an attack coming down and the increasing ease of use of the technology to launch large-scale attacks, any institution is vulnerable."
O'Shea said Aspire has a number of filters and security appliances in place to help defend its network against an attack.
"We also have secondary network access methods, independent of our primary T-1 pipe," he said. "I wouldn't want to disclose the systems we use, but we are managing our network access and security to the best of our abilities. Unfortunately small and mid-sized CUs are going to feel far more budgetary pressure to continue to monitor, defend and beef-up their network security."
