Denial-of-Service Attacks Are on the Rise, Security Vendors Report

Computerworld: Security vendors Prolexic and Arbor Networks are reporting that DDoS attacks rose 45 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. They said that many of those attacks were characterized by shorter attack duration, but  bigger packet-per-second attack volume. The companies also reported a growing number layer-7 DDoS attacks, which target particular Internet facing applications rather than load balancers or Internet gateways.

Surprisingly, more DDoS attacks originated in Japan than in any other country during the reporting period. Japan usually has a low incidence of attacks, but security experts say that hackers may be taking advantage of poor security in the wake of the country’s natural disasters.

The number one reason for DDoS attacks was political and ideological conflicts.