Cloudflare has announced its 2023 Q4 DDoS report – which showed that DDoS attacks reached new heights in 2023.
This report includes insights and trends about the DDoS threat landscape — as observed across the global Cloudflare network, which is one of the largest in the world.
Hyper-volumetric HTTP DDoS attacks:
2023 was the year of uncharted territories. DDoS attacks reached new heights — in size and sophistication. The wider Internet community, including Cloudflare, faced a persistent and deliberately engineered campaign of thousands of hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks at never before seen rates.
These attacks were highly complex and exploited an HTTP/2 vulnerability. As part of this DDoS campaign, in Q3 Cloudflare’s systems mitigated the largest attack it has ever seen — 201 million requests per second (rps). That’s almost 8 times larger than its previous 2022 record of 26 million rps.
Growth in network-layer DDoS attacks
After the hyper-volumetric campaign subsided, Cloudflare saw an unexpected drop in HTTP DDoS attacks by 20% compared to 2022. On the network-layer, the company saw a completely different trend.
Cloudflare’s automated defenses mitigated 8.7 million network-layer DDoS attacks in 2023. This represents an 85% increase compared to 2022.
DDoS attacks increase during and around COP 28
In the final quarter of 2023, the landscape of cyber threats witnessed a significant shift. While the Cryptocurrency sector was initially leading in terms of the volume of HTTP DDoS attack requests, a new target emerged as a primary victim.
The Environmental Services industry experienced an unprecedented surge in HTTP DDoS attacks, with these attacks constituting half of all its HTTP traffic.
This marked a staggering 618-fold increase compared to the previous year, highlighting a disturbing trend in the cyber threat landscape. There is a growing intersection between environmental issues and cyber security, a nexus that is increasingly becoming a focal point for attackers in the digital age.
DDoS attacks and Iron Swords
Cyber attacks, and particularly DDoS attacks, have long been a tool of war and disruption. Cloudflare witnessed an increase in DDoS attack activity in the Ukraine-Russia war, and now again in the Israel-Hamas war. Operation “Iron Swords” is the military offensive launched by Israel against Hamas following the Hamas-led 7 October attack. During this ongoing armed conflict, there continues to be DDoS attacks targeting both sides. Relative to each region’s traffic, the Palestinian territories was the second most attacked region by HTTP DDoS attacks in Q4. 90% of these DDoS attacks targeted Palestinian Banking websites. Another 8% targeted Information Technology and Internet platforms.
Similarly, Cloudflare’s systems automatically mitigated over 2.2 billion HTTP DDoS requests targeting Israeli websites. Of those Israeli websites attacked, Newspaper & Media were the main target — receiving almost 40% of all Israel-bound HTTP DDoS attacks. The second most attacked industry was the Computer Software industry. The Banking, Financial Institutions, and Insurance (BFSI) industry came in third.
HTTP DDoS attacks
- Top origins of attacks
In the third quarter of 2022, China was the largest source of HTTP DDoS attack traffic. However, since the fourth quarter of 2022, the US took the first place as the largest source of HTTP DDoS attacks and has maintained that undesirable position for five consecutive quarters.
Together, China and the US account for a little over a quarter of all HTTP DDoS attack traffic in the world. Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, and Argentina account for the next twenty-five percent.
- Most attacked industries
By volume of attack traffic, Cryptocurrency was the most attacked industry in Q4. Over 330 billion HTTP requests targeted it. This figure accounts for over 4% of all HTTP DDoS traffic for the quarter.
The second most attacked industry was Gaming & Gambling. These industries are known for being coveted targets and attract a lot of traffic and attacks
- Most attacked countries
Singapore was the main target of HTTP DDoS attacks in Q4. The US followed closely in second and Canada in third. Taiwan came in as the fourth most attacked region — amidst the upcoming general elections and the tensions with China.
Network Layer DDoS attacks
- Target Countries
China is the number one most attacked country by network-layer attacks. 45% of all network-layer DDoS traffic that Cloudflare mitigated globally was China-bound.
- Most attacked industries
On the network layer, Public Relations and Communications was the most targeted industry — 36% of its traffic was malicious. This too is very interesting given its timing.
Public Relations and Communications companies are usually linked to managing public perception and communication. Disrupting their operations can have immediate and widespread reputational impacts which becomes even more critical during the Q4 holiday season.
This quarter often sees increased PR and communication activities due to holidays, end-of-year summaries, and preparation for the new year, making it a critical operational period — one that some may want to disrupt.
Attack vectors and attributes
The majority of DDoS attacks are short and small relative to Cloudflare’s scale. However, unprotected websites and networks can still suffer disruption from short and small attacks without proper inline automated protection — underscoring the need for organizations to be proactive in adopting a robust security posture.
The use of Mirai-variant botnets is still very common. In Q4, almost 3% of all attacks originate from Mirai. Though, of all attack methods, DNS-based attacks remain the attackers’ favourite. Together, DNS Floods and DNS Amplification attacks account for almost 53% of all attacks in Q4. SYN Flood follows in second and UDP floods in third.
Commenting on the report, Bashar Bashaireh, Managing Director & Head of Sales – Middle East and Türkiye at Cloudflare, “Cloudflare’s mission is to help build a better Internet, and we believe that a better Internet is one that is secure, performant, and available to all. No matter the attack type, the attack size, the attack duration or the motivation behind the attack, Cloudflare’s defenses stand strong. Since we pioneered unmetered DDoS Protection in 2017, we’ve made and kept our commitment to make enterprise-grade DDoS protection free for all organizations alike — and of course, without compromising performance. This is made possible by our unique technology and robust network architecture,” said Bashaireh.
