According to the company NSFOCUS, 2018 was a year where hackers repeatedly used botnets to carry out denial-of-service attacks on high-speed networks.
There has been a lot of research into botnets, and researchers have identified significant changes. First, there are changes in the programming of the malware used to create bots and their functions.
NSFOCUS studied 82 IP Chain-Gangs, groups of bots from multiple botnets, that acted in concert during specific cyberattacks throughout 2018. If we want to improve our defenses and be able to deal with cyberattacks effectively, we must first understand botnets well.
In this, some findings of NSFOCUS, which emerged from research :
NSFOCUS detected 111,472 attacks originating from botnets targeting 451,187 users. This number indicates an increase of 66.4%compared to the previous year.
The two countries that received the most botnet attacks were the US (47.2%) and China (39.78%).
According to the research, the main targets of the attacks were pornographic and gambling sites. Specifically, 29,161 DDoS attacks were carried out during 2018, which means that there were approximately 79 attacks every day.
Another observation, made by the researchers, is that there has been a shift in botnets from Windows platforms to Linux and IoT.
IoT platforms attracted the highest percentage of attacks (87%).
There is a great need to understand how botnets are being used and where they are being targeted. “ Security providers must adapt their strategies to mitigate the growing threats posed by the new generation of botnets,” said Richard Zhao, COO of NSFOCUS.
He added that it is necessary to strengthen the protection of IoT devices and platforms. Experts, most often, think about dealing with other threats, such as ransomware and cryptominers. However, as IoT devices are part of our everyday lives, emphasis must be given there as well.
The total number of IoT devices worldwide is growing rapidly. However, not much attention has been paid to security, resulting in the emergence of many vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers.
