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Executive Summary

For the period starting Oct. 1, 2014 and ending Dec. 31, 2014, Verisign observed the following key trends:• Sustained attacks reaching 60 Gbps/16 Mpps for UDP floods and

55 Gbps/60 Mpps for TCP-based attacks.

• Average attack size increased to 7.39 gigabits per second (Gbps), rising 14% higher than in Q3 2014 and 245% higher than Q4 2013. 

• The most frequently targeted industry in Q4 was IT Services/Cloud/SaaS, representing one third of all mitigation activity and peaking at just over 60 Gbps.

• A significant increase in the number of attacks against Public–Sector organizations, which represented 15% of all Verisign mitigations in Q4.

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Attack StatsMitigations by Attack Size:• Q4 attacks averaged 7.39 Gbps, a 14% increase

in average attack size from Q1 2014 and a 245% increase from Q4 2013.

• 42% of attacks leveraged more than 1 Gbps of attack traffic

• Largest volumetric UDP-based attack: 60 Gbps; largest TCP-based attack: 55 Gbps.

Mitigations by Vertical: • IT/Cloud/SaaS had the largest volume of

attacks, making up more than 1/3 of attacks and peaking at just over 60 Gbps in Q4.

• Attacks against Public-Sector customers doubled since Q3 to account for more than 15% of attacks in Q4.

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Feature: DDoS-for-Hire Services Mean Increased Threat

• DDoS-for-hire services – also known as “booters” – present a huge risk for security professionals, as they enable virtually anyone to hire skilled cyber criminals to launch a targeted DDoS attack.

• “Booters” can be hired today for as little as $5 USD an hour – and some as low as $2 USD an hour (see table), according to Verisign iDefense research.

• Given the ready availability of DDoS-as-a-service offerings, and the increasing affordability of such services, organizations of all sizes and industries are at greater risk than ever of falling victim to a DDoS attack.

• For more information on the DDoS-for-hire threat, please visit www.VerisignInc.com/DDoSTrends

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