Distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are on the rise globally. According to researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands, University of California, San Diego and Saarland University in Germany, one-third of all networks active on the internet have experienced a DDoS attack at some point over the last two years, SecurityWeek reported.

The researchers also discovered evidence of nearly 21 million attacks directed at 6.34 million unique IP addresses over the two-year period. This works out to an average of 28,700 distinct DDoS attacks every day.

Providing a Larger Framework

Most DDoS reports only analyze specific attacks and specific responses. This report, titled, “Millions of Targets Under Attack: A Macroscopic Characterization of the DoS Ecosystem,” offered a broader examination of DDoS attacks, attack targets and DDoS protection services.

The study analyzed data sets originating from the UCSD Network Telescope, which picks up on DDoS attacks involving randomly and uniformly spoofed addresses as well as AmpPot DDoS honeypots. The results were staggering.

“Each day we see attacks on tens of thousands of unique target IP addresses, spread over thousands of autonomous systems,” the researchers noted in the paper.

Preventing DDoS Attacks

The report also highlighted what’s behind DDoS protection services migration for companies seeking attack prevention. Notably, the researchers found that the duration of a DDoS attack does not strongly correlate with a company choosing a migration. Low-level attacks are also largely ignored by site owners even if they are repeated. But there was one exception: Early migration to a protection service typically follows high-intensity attacks.

With DDoS attacks now far more widespread than ever before — and perhaps more popular than previously realized — combating these threats should be a top priority among IT security teams.