The latest DDoS Threat Intelligence report from NETSCOUT shows sophisticated attacker collaboration, resilient botnets, and compromised IoT infrastructure that drove more than eight million DDoS attacks worldwide.
It also highlights the accelerating growth of DDoS-for-hire services which is empowering a broader range of threat actors.
“Threat actors identify organisations that haven’t invested in the right defences to stay ahead of sophisticated and coordinated DDoS attacks to take down critical infrastructure,” says Richard Hummel, director, threat intelligence at NETSCOUT. “Traditional security defences are no longer working, and with attackers hitting new attack size and complexity ceilings, implementing automated and proactive defences has become a business-level risk mandate — not just a technical concern for security professionals.”
See also:
Vibe hacking and flat-pack malware — the low-effort attacks being used to beat defenses
Threat groups collaborate to boost impact
Attackers swap brute force for trusted tools
The report shows that approximately 42 percent of DDoS attacks employed two to five distinct attack vectors, with some adapting dynamically throughout the attack to complicate detection and mitigation
Outbound attacks are impacting broadband and mobile services too. Direct-path attacks that compromise IoT and customer-premises equipment can generate outbound floods exceeding one Tbps, creating liability, service, and reputational risk for broadband and mobile providers.
AI is helping attackers too, with large language models (LLMs) on the dark web accelerating vulnerability exploitation and botnet expansion, and underground forums documenting a 219 percent increase in mentions of malicious AI tools. Groups like Keymous+ have demonstrated how partnerships between threat actors amplify attack power, with bandwidth increasing nearly fourfold.
You can get the full report from the NETSCOUT site.
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