Gcore Radar is a quarterly report produced by Gcore that provides insight into the current state of the DDoS protection market and cybersecurity trends. This report focuses on understanding the evolving threat landscape and the measures needed to effectively protect against attacks. It serves as an insight for businesses and individuals looking to stay up to date on the latest developments in cybersecurity.
As we enter 2023, the cybersecurity landscape has seen an increase in sophisticated and high-volume attacks. Here, we introduce the current state of the DDoS protection market based on Gcore statistics.
Key highlights from Q1 to Q2
- Maximum attack power increased from 600 Gbps to 800 Gbps.
- UDP flood attacks were the most common, accounting for 52% of all attacks, and SYN flood attacks accounted for 24%. Third place was TCP floods.
- Gaming, telecoms and finance are the most attacked business sectors.
- The longest attack duration in the first half of the year was 7 days, 16 hours and 22 minutes.
- Most attacks lasted within four hours.
Massive Attacks: Escalating Threats
Over the past two years, the power and volume of DDoS attacks have increased significantly.
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| Figure 1. Attack intensity, 2021-2023, Gbps |
Alt text: Illustration of attacks increasing from 300 Gbps in 2021, 650 Gbps in 2021 to 800 Gbps in 2023
The staggering 50-100% annual growth in DDoS attack volume highlights the increasing sophistication of cyber attackers and the use of increasingly powerful tools. This means companies need to invest in her DDoS mitigation strategies and solutions to protect their networks, systems and customer data. Not addressing these evolving threats can result in costly disruptions, reputational damage, loss of customer confidence, and security breaches.
DDoS attack method
According to Gcore statistics, Q1-Q2 of 2023 will be:
- UDP floods are gaining popularity among attackers and are the most common method.
- SYN Flood 2nd
- 3rd place is TCP flood
- All other techniques combined account for only 5% of attack types
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| Figure 2. Spread of Attack Types, Q1-Q2 2023 |
Alt Text: Attack Types Illustrated: 52% – UDP, 24% – SYN Flood, 19% – TCP Flood, 5% – Other Traffic
According to Andrei Surastenov, Gcore web security, the frequency of complex multi-vector attacks by attackers is increasing. Attackers are now using adaptive strategies, such as combining large her UDP attacks with large numbers of TCP packets, or moving from targeting application layers with large amounts of traffic to using large numbers of small packets. is employed. These tactical changes represent a deliberate effort to harden DDoS attacks by overwhelming network infrastructure and potentially evading mitigations. The ultimate goal is to maximize the impact of an attack and disrupt service.
DDoS attacks by business sector
DDoS attacks across different business sectors have revealed certain trends and impacts. According to Gcore’s report, the most attacked sectors in the first and second quarters of 2023 will be gaming, telecoms and finance.
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| Figure 3. The most attacked industries, according to Gcore statistics. |
Alt Text: Attack Types Illustrated: 30.1% – Gaming, 24.7% – Telecom, 16.8% – Finance, 28.4% – Other
of game industry was the most targeted sector and accounted for a significant portion of DDoS attacks. Gaming platforms operate in real-time and serve millions of active users, so even short downtimes can have a negative impact. Attackers aim to disrupt service, compromise player experience, and potentially gain a competitive advantage. The financial impact is significant, and game companies often $25,000 to $40,000 per hour of downtime.
of telecommunications sector is facing a large volume of DDoS attacks, impacting Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other telecommunications services. These attacks can cause widespread Internet outages, impacting not only the telecommunications companies themselves, but also the businesses and consumers that rely on their services. The destructive nature of such attacks against critical infrastructure can disrupt customer communications, many aspects of daily life and business operations, and have far-reaching implications.
of financial sectorBusinesses, including banks and financial technology (FinTech) companies, are under constant threat from DDoS attacks. The increasing adoption of digital banking and online financial services increases the potential for destructive attacks that can bring financial operations to a complete halt.
DDoS protection with Gcore
Gcore protects you from DDoS attacks with protection against L3, L4, and L7 threats that use over 1 Tbps of filtering capacity. Real-time traffic filtering selectively blocks malicious sessions, allowing normal business processes to continue during attacks. All Gcore DDoS Protection servers are powered by high-performance 3rd Gen Intelยฎ Xeonยฎ Scalable processors, capable of processing at high speeds, allowing you to respond to attacks as quickly as possible.learning How Gcore beat off 650 Gbps attack in January 2023.
