Ukraine war tied to record-high DDoS attacks in first quarter

Distributed denial-of-service attack rates have reached their peak during the first three months of 2022, with the number of DDoS attacks in the first quarter of this year being 4.5 times higher than the same period last year, TechRepublic reports. Most of the increase in DDoS attack prevalence has been attributed to cybercrime groups' exploitation of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with some attacks coming from the U.S., North Korea, and China, according to Kaspersky researchers. Attacks during the first quarter peaked at 2,250 on Jan. 19 before declining by the end of February. The U.S. accounted for 55.53% of all command-and-control servers used in DDoS attacks, while 44.34% of attacks were aimed at U.S.-based targets. Nearly 54% of attacks were discovered to be UDP flood, and while most attacks occurred within less than four hours, researchers found that the longest spanned nearly 23 days. Kaspersky also noted that most attacks lasting more than a day were targeted at government and financial entities.