Radware Full Year 2022 Report: Malicious DDoS Attacks Rise 150%
Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR) released its 2022 Global Threat Analysis Report, highlighting a staggering 150% increase in DDoS attacks year-over-year, especially pronounced in the Americas with a 212% rise. The report indicates a significant escalation in attack frequency, with organizations mitigating an average of 29.3 attacks daily in Q4 2022. Attack volume reached 4.44PB, a 32% increase, while the largest attack peaked at 1.46Tbps. The finance sector suffered the most with 53% of attacks, followed by technology (20%) and healthcare (11%). Web application and API attacks surged by 128%, showcasing a greater complexity and frequency in cyber threats.
- 150% increase in global DDoS attacks in 2022.
- Impressive growth in attack volume to 4.44PB, up 32%.
- Radware positioned as a leader in cybersecurity amidst rising threats.
- Finance sector disproportionately targeted, facing 53% of attacks.
- Complexity of attacks increasing, making mitigation harder.
- Digitalization, shift to remote work, and rise in state sponsored cyberattacks and espionage continue to drive DDoS surge
- Finance and technology among industries shouldering the most DDoS attacks
- Web application and API attacks jump
128% year over year
MAHWAH, N.J., Feb. 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Radware® (NASDAQ: RDWR), a leading provider of cyber security and application delivery solutions, released its 2022 Global Threat Analysis Report. The full-year report leverages intelligence provided by network and application attack activity sourced from Radware’s Cloud and Managed Services, Global Deception Network and threat research team.
“‘More’ is the operative word for the global threat landscape in 2022. Compared to 2021, there were not only more DDoS attacks in terms of sheer number, but they were also more powerful, frequent and complex, spanning more attack vectors,” said Pascal Geenens, director of threat intelligence for Radware. “The surge can be attributed in part to digitalization, the war in Ukraine, and a long-tail of new vulnerabilities and exposed services driven by work-from-home remote access during Covid. The ongoing tensions between major world powers have also led to a rise in state-sponsored cyberattacks and espionage activities.”
GLOBAL ATTACK TRENDS: THE UNRELENTING RISE OF DDOS
The global DDoS landscape is rapidly evolving. In 2022, DDoS attack profiles were redefined by gains in number, frequency, volume, power, duration and complexity.
- Number of attacks: In 2022, the number of DDoS attacks grew
150% on a global basis compared to the previous year. The number of attacks in the Americas rose even faster, increasing212% compared to 2021. More than half of the attacks were aimed at organizations in EMEA. The Americas accounted for35% of the attacks while7% of the attacks targeted APAC organizations. - Attack frequency: The frequency of DDoS attacks also saw a significant and concerning uptick. Globally, organizations mitigated an average of 29.3 attacks per day during the fourth quarter of 2022, 3.5 times more compared to 8.4 attacks per day at the end of 2021. Attacks in EMEA grew even faster than the global average and outpaced both the Americas and APAC. Organizations in EMEA averaged 45 attacks per day in the fourth quarter of 2022, four-times more compared to 11.3 attacks per day during the same period in 2021.
- Attack volume: While the total global attack volume recorded in 2022 was 4.44PB, an increase of
32% compared to 2021, the Americas faced the heftiest increases. Last year, attack volumes in the Americas outpaced global volumes, growing110% compared to 2021. While EMEA topped the Americas in frequency of attacks, it saw total attack volume decline in 2022, decreasing by44% compared to the previous year.
- Attack power: Globally, the largest recorded attack in 2022 was 1.46Tbps, which is 2.8 times larger than the largest attack recorded in 2021.
- Attack duration: The longest attacks in 2022 ranged between 100 and 250Gbps on a global basis, where on average the attacks lasted 66 hours or 2.75 days.
- Attack complexity: DDoS attacks continue to increase in complexity. Attackers typically leverage multiple and dissimilar vectors to increase the impact and make attack mitigation harder. On a global basis in 2022, attacks above 1Gbps on average had more than two dissimilar attack vectors per attack, which doubled in complexity for attacks above 10Gbps. Attacks above 100Gbps had on average more than nine dissimilar attack vectors with the most complex attacks leveraging 38 dissimilar attack vectors.
“In 2023, the democratization of DDoS and patriotic hacktivism will continue to drive an increase in smaller, more frequent attacks – a trend we are already seeing in the increased frequency of lower volume attacks in EMEA. At the same time, expect the cybercrime underground to become even better organized and funded in its pursuit of hard-hitting attacks,” said Geenens. “Attackers are always looking for new more sophisticated ways to advance their cyber agendas. As a result, organizations find themselves in an escalating state of risk, trying to defend themselves against next-generation threats.”
MOST ATTACKED INDUSTRIES
On a global basis, finance was the most attacked industry in 2022, with
Even on a geographic distribution, finance and technology were among the industries shouldering the brunt of the DDoS activity.
- In America, finance represented
32% of the attack activity, followed by healthcare (24% ) and technology (17% ). - In EMEA, finance (
71% ) also topped the list as the most-attacked industry, followed by technology (16% ) and government (4% ). - In APAC, technology was the most attacked industry, with
70% of the attack activity, followed by finance (9% ) and government (8% ).
WEB APPLICATION ATTACKS
Web application and API attacks grew exponentially in 2022.
- Web application and API attacks increased
128% year over year, significantly out pacing the88% increase in attacks between 2020 and 2021. - Predictable resource location attacks accounted for almost half of the attack activity. Together, code injection (
14% ) and SQL injection (11% ) attacks represented another quarter of the web application attacks. - The most attacked industries were retail and wholesale trade (
25% ), followed by high-tech (20% ), and carriers (15% ), together accounting for60% of blocked web application attacks.
Radware’s complete 2022 Global Threat Analysis Report can be downloaded here.
About Radware
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THIS PRESS RELEASE AND THE RADWARE 2022 GLOBAL THREAT ANALYSIS REPORT ARE PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. THESE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE AN INDICATOR OF RADWARE'S BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OR OPERATING RESULTS FOR ANY PRIOR, CURRENT, OR FUTURE PERIOD.
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This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements made herein that are not statements of historical fact, including statements about Radware’s plans, outlook, beliefs, or opinions, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “estimates,” “plans,” and similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “should,” “would,” “may,” and “could.” For example, when we say organizations find themselves in an escalating state of risk, trying to defend themselves against next-generation threats, we are using a forward-looking statement. Because such statements deal with future events, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties, and actual results, expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, could differ materially from Radware’s current forecasts and estimates. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: the impact of global economic conditions and volatility of the market for our products; natural disasters and public health crises, such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; a shortage of components or manufacturing capacity could cause a delay in our ability to fulfill orders or increase our manufacturing costs; our business may be affected by sanctions, export controls, and similar measures, targeting Russia and other countries and territories, as well as other responses to Russia’s military conflict in Ukraine, including indefinite suspension of operations in Russia and dealings with Russian entities by many multi-national businesses across a variety of industries; our ability to successfully implement our strategic initiative to accelerate our cloud business; our ability to expand our operations effectively; timely availability and customer acceptance of our new and existing solutions; risks and uncertainties relating to acquisitions or other investments; the impact of economic and political uncertainties and weaknesses in various regions of the world, including the commencement or escalation of hostilities or acts of terrorism; intense competition in the market for cyber security and application delivery solutions and in our industry in general, and changes in the competitive landscape; changes in government regulation; outages, interruptions, or delays in hosting services or our internal network system; compliance with open source and third-party licenses; the risk that our intangible assets or goodwill may become impaired; our dependence on independent distributors to sell our products; long sales cycles for our solutions; changes in foreign currency exchange rates; undetected defects or errors in our products or a failure of our products to protect against malicious attacks; the availability of components and manufacturing capacity; the ability of vendors to provide our hardware platforms and components for our main accessories; our ability to protect our proprietary technology; intellectual property infringement claims made by third parties; changes in tax laws; our ability to realize our investment objectives for our cash and liquid investments; our ability to attract, train, and retain highly qualified personnel; and other factors and risks over which we may have little or no control. This list is intended to identify only certain of the principal factors that could cause actual results to differ. For a more detailed description of the risks and uncertainties affecting Radware, refer to Radware’s Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the other risk factors discussed from time to time by Radware in reports filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and, except as required by applicable law, Radware undertakes no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statement in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date any such statement is made. Radware’s public filings are available from the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or may be obtained on Radware’s website at www.radware.com.
Media Contact:
Gerri Dyrek
Radware
Gerri.Dyrek@radware.com
FAQ
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