StormWall experts revealed that at the beginning of Q2 2021 the number of powerful DDoS attacks on online games increased 30 times. The maximum power of attacks at the moment reaches 1 Tbit/s. According to StormWall experts, DDoS attacks were carried out using a new incarnation of the famous Layer7 botnet, which consisted of 25,000 infected IoT devices. The main targets of the cybercriminals were game servers, since they have maximum liquidity to monetize DDoS attacks, hackers can quickly cause large losses and quickly get money through blackmail.
The most powerful DDoS attacks were recorded over UDP. According to the StormWall situational center, the Layer7 botnet can launch powerful, but at the same time fairly primitive attacks. An attacker can only change the length of a packet and fill it with random data; no means of bypassing protection or adapting it to a specific application is provided. However, there is a ready-made protection profile for TeamSpeak3, a popular voice service among gamers.
The new version of the botnet can be bought from cybercriminals for as little as $250 per week and provides access to attacks of up to 1 Tbps. Before purchase, a free test of the attack is offered. There’s also Telegram support for customers.
“New technologies are helping to improve the world, but new cybersecurity threats usually arise with them. Hackers are using new technologies to create more powerful botnets, and the Internet of Things is a charming target for them. IoT devices allow the creation of incredibly powerful botnets. Most IoT devices are practically not protected from hacker attacks and contain serious vulnerabilities. Using a tremendous abundance of unprotected IoT devices, attackers can create powerful botnets and launch massive DDoS attacks.” – Ramil Khantimirov, CEO and co-founder of StormWall.
