Malicious Web Application Attacks Climb 88%

According to the Radware report, findings underscore 2021 as the year of the web application attack. Between 2020 and 2021, the number of malicious web application requests climbed 88%, more than double the year-over-year growth rate in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which were up 37% over 2020. The unprecedented increase in web application attacks did not, however, prevent DDoS from making a name for itself in 2021.

The report details how last year saw multiple record-breaking DDoS attacks and ransom denial-of-service (RDoS) earn its place in the threat landscape. At the same time that big attacks were making headlines, the volume of micro floods, attacks which often go undetected, rose nearly 80% compared to 2020. The statistics tell a story about bad actors. They are getting smarter, more organized, and more targeted in pursuing their objectives — whether that be for money, fame, or a political cause. In addition, cybercriminals are shifting their attack patterns — from leveraging larger attack vectors to combining multiple vectors in more complex-to-mitigate campaigns. Ransomware operators and their affiliates, which now include DDoS-for-hire actors, are working with a whole new level of professionalism and discipline — something that we have not seen before.

As more businesses migrate critical resources and applications to the public cloud, attackers are adapting their tactics and techniques to match the scale of public cloud providers. While enterprises should not be immediately alarmed by reports of huge attacks, they do need to be aware that DDoS attacks are a part of their threat landscape, irrespective of their geography or industry. Companies hosting services in the public cloud need to be prepared for cloud-scale attacks.

In 2021, more sophisticated and better organized operators advanced their tactics, adding more extortion capabilities to their arsenal. To bring reluctant victims back to the negotiating table, they launched triple extortion campaigns by combining not only cryptolocking and data leaks, but also DDoS attacks. As a result, the flourishing underground economy supported by ransomware operators is seeing a new demand for DDoS-for-hire services. Secondly, the number of malicious DDoS events increased by 37% per customer compared to 2020. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the Americas each accounted for 40% of the attack volume in 2021, while the Asia Pacific region accounted for 20%.

Average 2021 DDoS attack volumes per customer grew by 26% in 2021 compared to 2020. The top attacked industries in 2021 were gaming and retail, each accounting for 22% of the attack volume on a normalized basis. These two industries were followed by the government (13%), healthcare (12%), technology (9%), and finance (6%). Broken access control and injection attacks represented more than 75% of web application attacks. Banks and financial institutions continue to be a prime target for web application attacks.