For cybercriminals, the COVID-19 pandemic is nothing short of an outstanding business opportunity—and they have taken full advantage.
Attackers targeted COVID-era lifelines such as e-commerce, healthcare, and educational services with short, complex, high-throughput attacks designed to quickly overwhelm and take down targeted entities.
Cybercriminals pounced on pandemic-driven vulnerabilities, launching an unprecedented number of shorter, faster, more complex attacks designed to increase ROI.
Attacks were also more complex, as 15-plus vector attacks spiked 2,851 percent in popularity since 2017. Three years ago, such attacks were considered outliers. Now, they are one of the most potent weapons in the DDoS attack arsenal. Meanwhile, we saw single-vector attacks drop 43 percent year over year.
ASERT monitors the threat landscape and reports on new actors, malware under development, and the increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques deployed. For an in-depth summary, download the latest NETSCOUT Threat Intelligence Report for the first half of 2020.
