New DDoS Attack in Europe Breaks Previous Record Set Only Two Months Ago

A new DDoS attack in Europe broke the previous record set just a couple of months ago, pushing the limit on what criminals are capable of deploying against an online resource.

In July, Akamai stopped what was then the most significant DDoS attack registered in Europe, peaking at 853.7 Gbps and 659.6 Mpps over 14 hours. These attacks are usually possible through large networks of compromised IoT devices and can easily cripple the online presence of a company that doesn’t set up the necessary protection.

The attack itself can inflict financial losses on a company, and in some situations, criminals use DDoS attacks to extort companies into paying them to stop. To make matters worse, a DDoS attack can also serve as a cover to hide the criminals’ true intentions, like infiltrating a company’s infrastructure.

“On Monday, September 12, 2022, Akamai successfully detected and mitigated the now-largest DDoS attack ever launched against a European customer on the Prolexic platform, with attack traffic abruptly spiking to 704.8 Mpps in an aggressive attempt to cripple the organization’s business operations,” explainedthe company.

“The attackers’ command and control system had no delay in activating the multidestination attack, which escalated in 60 seconds from 100 to 1,813 IPs active per minute. Those IPs were spread across eight distinct subnets in six distinct locations. An attack this heavily distributed could drown an underprepared security team in alerts, making it difficult to assess the severity and scope of the intrusion, let alone fight the attack,” the company added.

The power of some of these DDoS attacks can prove to be more than a company or public institution can bear. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, numerous companies and other institutions in Europe have been the target of massive DDoS attacks, and they’ll likely continue for the foreseeable future.