2013-10-20

The average size of DDoS attacks is still climbing with the number breaching 20Gbps around four times the level seen a year ago, according to Arbor Networks.

The firm's numbers of the first three quarters of 2013 show a rising curve with average attack sizes reaching 3-3.5Gbps, compared to 1.48Gbps for the same period in 2012. For the year as a whole, the average was now 2.64Gbps.

Although no attack in the third quarter reached the extreme scale of March's humungous 300Gbps Spamhaus super-DDoS, the firm's Atlas system did record one of 191Gbps in August, which suggests that the new traffic ceiling is shifting from 100Gbps to 200Gbps.

Probably more significant was the more than fourfold rise in the number of attacks over the 20Gbps threshold compared to 2012 with three months of the year still left to run, Arbor said.

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