Total malicious events across all industries increased 11.5% compared to Q1 of this year, with retail and gaming seeing the most attacks in Q2. They noted volumes of 33TB and 24TB per month, respectively over the period.
The figures were published in the Radware Security Report: Q2 2021. The report further revealed that in Q2, total blocked DDoS attack volumes were up more than 40% compared to the same period in 2020.
“Organisations are being challenged by well-organised threat actors,” said Pascal Geenens director, threat intelligence for Radware
“The window between the disclosing and weaponising of new vulnerabilities is getting very slim. In some cases, we observed less than 24 hours between a manufacturer publishing a patch and malicious activity trying to exploit the vulnerability,” Geenens continued.
The data for the report is based on a sample set of Radware devices deployed in Radware’s cloud scrubbing centres and on-premise managed devices in its hybrid and peak protection services.
Taking a more general view of the threat landscape, Radware noted that, on average, companies across all sectors had to detect and block nearly 5,000 malicious events and a volume of 2.3TB per month during the second quarter of 2021. The average number of blocked malicious events per company was up more than 30% and the average blocked volume per company increased by more than 40% compared to the second quarter of 2020.
Combining Q1 figures to show trends over the first half, Radware found a company located in the Americas or Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) had to repel, on average, twice as much volume compared to a company located in the Asia-Pacific region. The Americas and EMEA accounted for about 80% of the blocked attack volume over the same period.
“While large ransomware attacks are capturing headlines, there are other cyber threats that companies need to pay attention to,” Geenens added.
“From an increase in DDoS extortion campaigns and DDoS hit-and-run assaults, to a hacktivist group targeting financial organisations in the Middle East, the second quarter saw a concerning amount of cyber activity compared to the activity levels we saw during the same quarter last year. The results of this report should serve as a strong reminder to enterprises that no company is immune from being a target.”
