DDoS Threat Report 2019 Q3

DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) remain the main driver of growth of DNS amplification attacks in the quarter, yet our analysts have detected a sharp and concerning rise in TCP SYN Flood attacks. TCP SYN Flood is not a new method, but findings indicate that techniques have grown in sophistication and have emerged as the third most used attack vector, behind DNS amplification and HTTP flood attacks.

• SYN Flood reflection not only hits targeted victims, but also can impact innocent users, including individuals, businesses, and other organizations. As a result, bystanders can incur hefty fees for bandwidth consumed by junk traffic, or even suffer from secondary outages.
• Even plain-vanilla network attacks could be turned into complex, stealthy attacks leveraging advanced techniques, from the bit-and-piece attacks, also known as carpet bombing.
• Enterprise networks and telcos must take heed of the resurgence of old threats to avoid junk traffic consuming user bandwidth.