Anyone who has been paying close attention to the technology sector may have noticed DDoS attacks have become far more widespread in 2016, than previously. To be more precise, major denial of service attacks have gotten more mainstream media coverage all of a sudden. A new Mirai botnet is making the rounds, and large-scale attacks are carried out every single day.
The Era of DDoS Attacks Has Arrived
Ever since the Mirai botnet shut down a few weeks ago affecting virtually every popular online service, there has been a lot of concern over the future of denial of service attacks. To make matters worse, the Mirai botnet code has been published on the internet, giving everyone in the world the necessary tools to carry out similar attacks.
So far, it appears that it is exactly what is happening on a global scale right now. Someone, or different entities, carries out daily large-scale denial of service attacks. Similarities between these attempts and the Mirai botnet are not hard to find, as IoT devices are being used on a massive scale to flood servers with web traffic.
Considering how German provider Deutsche Telekom suffers from a massive internet connectivity issue, it is apparent that someone could be emulating the Mirai botnet against that specific target. But that is not the only attack, as junk traffic has been distributed to other targets ever since November 2016. Most of these attacks run for 24 hours non-stop, and then suddenly subside.
While the scope of junk traffic is not as massive as what the Mirai botnet pumped out, it is more than sufficient to knock services offline for extended periods. Moreover, this new botnet can easily surpass 400 gigabits per second of traffic. In most cases, that amount of traffic will cripple an entire network, or shut it down completely as server resources are exhausted quickly.
Protecting against these types of attacks is not easy. Granted, there are infrastructure providers who can help mitigate most of the bogus traffic, but it will still lead to sub-par accessibility overall. It is equally impossible to pinpoint the source of the attack, as it is usually a combination of different botnets joining forces to create giant attack waves.
Given the sheer amount of Internet-connected devices, attacks like these can harness computational power from any device it wants. Whether that means that computers, satellite receivers, cameras, or even routers, need to be abused, they all add to the pie of internet traffic flooders. These types of attacks will only grow more common as time progresses.
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