Kaspersky: Decline in DDoS Attacks Linked to Surge in Cryptocurrency Value

DDoS attacks fell by pretty much a third (31%) in Q4 of 2020 when compared to Q3, in accordance to new figures from Kaspersky.

The scientists think this reduction is linked to the surge in cryptocurrency charges, with cyber-criminals more and more turning their attention to cryptomining. Kaspersky statistics confirmed that though the number of cryptominers declined throughout 2019 and at the get started of 2020, from August 2020, this sort of malware has absent up somewhat.

With cryptomining getting additional valuable, it is probably lots of cyber-criminals re-profiled some botnets to enable C&C servers, normally utilised in DDoS attacks, to repurpose contaminated units and use their computing electric power to mine cryptocurrencies as an alternative.

Final month, Avira exposed it experienced detected a 53% rise in crypto-mining application in the closing quarter of 2020, connected to the soar in Bitcoin value.

In spite of this quarter-on-quarter drop in Q4 of 2020, DDoS attacks had been even now 10% higher in comparison to the identical period of time in 2019. This is as a final result of the ongoing surge in DDoS attacks in 2020, with cyber-villains exploiting the expanding number of folks and time expended on the internet due to the fact the introduction of COVID-19 social distancing limitations. Kaspersky observed that numerous academic establishments were targeted with this tactic in the last a few months of 2020, including quite a few educational institutions in Massachusetts and Laurentian University in Canada.

Alexey Kiselev, business improvement manager on the Kaspersky DDoS Safety group commented: “The DDoS attack market place is currently affected by two reverse trends. On the 1 hand, people continue to really rely on steady operate of on line methods, which can make DDoS attacks a common selection for malefactors. On the other hand, with a spike in cryptocurrency selling prices, it might be extra lucrative for them to infect some equipment with miners. As a outcome, we see that the total variety of DDoS attacks in Q4 remained very secure. And we can predict that this development will keep on in 2021.”

Some sections of this article are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-journal.com