After mitigating targeted DDoS attacks against
a major bank, Lumen urges implementation of comprehensive DDoS
mitigation
DENVER, Oct. 26,
2023 /PRNewswire/ -- New data from the Lumen
Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
mitigation platform landed the banking industry in the unenviable
position of being the most targeted vertical of Q3 2023. This is
the first time the banking industry topped Lumen's "most targeted
verticals" list and was largely due to the events of a single day:
Sept. 21, 2023.
For the first time ever, banking was the
most-targeted industry for both DDoS and application-layer attacks
in Q3 2023.
On that day, a single banking customer was targeted with more
than 230 DDoS attacks – a whopping 4,500% increase over the daily
average for that industry – yet it experienced no downtime. Had the
attackers been successful, they could have caused significant
damage in the form of lost business, remediation costs and
reputational damage.
"The successful mitigations for this banking customer can be
traced back to Lumen's multi-layered approach to DDoS mitigation,"
said Brett Lemarinel, director of
unified threat management for Lumen. "It starts at our network,
where countermeasures are built in, and our intelligent routing
technology, which sends excess traffic through our 500+ scrubbing
locations. Our DDoS customers have an added layer of protection
from Rapid Threat Defense, our proprietary capability that utilizes
threat intelligence from Lumen Black Lotus Labs® to block DDoS
botnet traffic before it reaches the customer's environment."
Read the Lumen Q3 2023 DDoS and Application Threat
Report for the latest stats.
Lemarinel continued, "This should be a warning to all other
businesses. More than 230 mitigations in a single day suggests the
threat actor was determined to wreak havoc on this customer. Even
though the attacker failed, the activity we saw on Sept. 21 is a potent reminder that any business
can be in an attacker's crosshairs on any given day."
Other notable findings in the report include:
- A never-before-seen, four-vector combination was attempted
during the Sept. 21 event.
- The four-vector combination included DNS Amplification, IP
Fragmentation, Invalid Packets and Static Filtering. Cyber
attackers frequently modify their vector combinations as they
attempt to defeat mitigation strategies, but the Lumen DDoS
mitigation platform has the flexibility required to recognize and
stop these attacks before they impact the targeted customers.
- The total number of attacks decreased in Q3 2023.
- Attackers frequently run their operations like a business and,
as with any business, cyberattacks have seasonal ups and downs. In
Q3 2023, Lumen mitigated 4,217 attacks, which was a 23%
quarter-over-quarter decrease and a 24% annual decrease.
- The banking industry was also the most-targeted vertical for
application threats, according to Lumen's application protection
partner, ThreatX.
- Among all industries, the highest percentage of blocked traffic
(25.5%) came from programmatic access, which are suspicious,
automated attempts to access a web application. This number is up
89% from the previous quarter.
- The banking sector experienced a significant percentage of
"Attacks Against Authentication" (nearly 25%), which are used to
gain unauthorized access to financial data.
- Financial institutions are attractive to attackers, as
evidenced by the high attack ratio and combination of brute-force
attacks that targeted banks in Q3. Protecting financial data is
paramount, but robust web application and API protection solutions
can help protect the industry.
"The Q3 ThreatX application attack analysis underscores the
critical importance of bot protection and the need for awareness of
industry-specific threats," said Neil
Weitzel, director, Security Operations Center at ThreatX.
"The especially high number of programmatic access threats this
quarter underscores the prevalence of bots in API and application
attacks. In addition, our findings reveal variations in threats
across industries, so businesses must stay vigilant and proactive
to safeguard their applications and APIs."
Additional resources
- Read the full Q3 2023 DDoS and Application Threat Report.
- See how Lumen and ThreatX combine to offer API and Application
Protection.
- Calculate the potential cost of a DDoS attack using the Lumen
DDoS Calculator.
- See how Lumen Rapid Threat Defense uses global threat
intelligence from Black Lotus Labs® as a countermeasure to block
DDoS bots on the network as traffic hits a scrubbing center.
- Visit the Lumen Quarterly DDoS report archive.
- Learn about Lumen's comprehensive DDoS mitigation and Next-gen
WAF/WAAP services.
About Lumen Technologies
Lumen connects the world. We
are igniting business growth by connecting people, data, and
applications – quickly, securely, and effortlessly. Everything we
do at Lumen takes advantage of our network strength. From metro
connectivity to long-haul data transport to our edge cloud,
security, and managed service capabilities, we meet our customers'
needs today and as they build for tomorrow. For news and insights
visit news.lumen.com, LinkedIn: /lumentechnologies,
Twitter: @lumentechco, Facebook: /lumentechnologies, Instagram:
@lumentechnologies, and YouTube: /lumentechnologies.
About ThreatX
ThreatX is managed API and
application protection that lets you secure them with confidence,
not complexity. It blocks botnets and advanced attacks in real
time, letting enterprises keep attackers at bay without lifting a
finger. Trusted by companies in every industry across the
globe, ThreatX profiles attackers and blocks advanced risks to
protect APIs and applications 24/7. Learn more at
https://www.threatx.com.
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SOURCE Lumen Technologies