Saudi Arabia
The massive shift to online life triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic prompted record-breaking levels of innovation by threat actors, and NETSCOUT’s ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT) expects this long tail of attacker innovation to last well into 2021.
Bad actors launched approximately 5.4 million DDoS attacks in 1H 2021—yet another record-breaking number. In particular, attackers launched unprecedented numbers of DDoS attacks in the first quarter, boosting attack frequency by 20 percent over the same time period in 2020. Meanwhile, adversaries discovered or weaponized seven UDP reflection/amplification DDoS attack vectors and developed adaptive multivector attacks specifically tailored to exploit vulnerabilities of their targets. Vital components of the connectivity supply chain came under increased attack, while ransomware gangs added triple-extortion DDoS tactics to their repertoire and the Fancy Lazarus threat actor launched a new DDoS extortion campaign.
Max Multivector Attack
Max number of vectors seen in a single attack
26
Attack Vectors Used
1. Chargen amplification
2. Citrix-ICA amplification
3. CLDAP amplification
4. DNS
5. DNS amplification
6. ICMP
7. IPMI amplification
8. IPv4 Protocol 0
9. ISAKMP
10. L2TP amplification
11. mDNS amplification
12. Memcached amplification
13. MSSQLRS amplification
14. NetBIOS amplification
15. NTP amplification
16. OpenVPN amplification
17. RIPv1 amplification
18. rpcbind amplification
19. SNMP amplification
20. SSDP amplification
21. TCP ACK
22. TCP NULL
23. TCP RST
24. TCP SYN
25. TCP SYN/ACK amplification
26. Ubiquiti amplification
Top 5 Attack Vectors
Ta
TCP ACK
Number of Attacks
73,400
Np
NTP amp
Number of Attacks
14,026
Dn
DNS amp
Number of Attacks
10,787
Im
ICMP
Number of Attacks
10,621
Ts
TCP SYN
Number of Attacks
9,993
Top Seven Vertical Industries Under Attack
The following industry chart shows the most targeted sectors in 1H 2021 by number of attacks.
| Rank | Vertical | Frequency | Max Attack | Max Impact | Average Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Wired Telecommunications Carriers
|
4,236 | 93.11 Gbps | 19.78 Mpps | 86.3 Minutes |
| 2 |
 Data Processing, Hosting + Related Services
|
150 | 16.50 Gbps | 4.03 Mpps | 36.0 Minutes |
| 3 |
 Other Telecommunications
|
71 | 14.34 Gbps | 3.80 Mpps | 88.0 Minutes |
| 4 |
 Computer Storage Device Manufacturing
|
5 | 1.97 Gbps | 0.23 Mpps | 56.8 Minutes |
| 5 |
 Offices of Physicians (except Mental Health Specialists)
|
2 | 0.03 Gbps | 0.00 Mpps | 14.5 Minutes |
| 6 |
 Scheduled Passenger Air Transportation
|
1 | 0.04 Gbps | 0.00 Mpps | 42.0 Minutes |
| 7 |
 Software Publishers
|
1 | 0.11 Gbps | 0.01 Mpps | 12.0 Minutes |