Report: More than 75% of DDoS attacks target online gaming
Quarterly cyber-security review from Nexusguard finds latency issues one of core reasons for increased levels of attacks
DDoS attacks on the online gaming industry in Q3 2020 accounted for 77% of attacks as perpetrators home in on the lucrativeness of the ecosystem, according to a new industry report.
Delivering its Q3 report on cyber-security issues, a survey from Nexusguard found that DDoS attacks in general had skyrocketed 287% year-on-year, with the online gaming industry one of the key targets for attackers.
Nexusguard pointed to online gaming platforms’ sensitivity to latency and availability issues as core reasons as to why they continue to remain susceptible to DDoS attacks.
The increase in online gaming traffic during 2020, thanks largely in part due to coronavirus-inflicted lockdowns, has piqued the interest of attackers.
The report also found that 99.5% of attacks were volumetric in nature, with 99.4% of attacks consisting of single vector attacks.
Nexusguard stated in its report: “Perpetrators aim to consume all bandwidth so that gamers suffer the side effects of latency and then switch to game server hosts with faster and more stable connectivity.”
Explaining the reasons behind the rise, Nexusguard CTO Juniman Kasman said: “Online gaming is snowballing in part due to the growth of cloud computing as well as the limited options for home entertainment during the pandemic, providing cyber attackers with a wide population of targets to exploit.
“Game service providers, CSPs and other organisations should take steps to safeguard service, including segregating applications to minimise collateral damage or rehearsing incident response drills to reduce service disruption during attacks,” he added.