The fourth quarter of 2020 saw a 31% decrease in DDoS attacks compared to the third quarter of the year, according to new data from Kaspersky. The company’s security researchers believe that this decrease is linked to the fact that the value of cryptocurrencies has increased, with cybercriminals increasingly turning their attention and interest to cryptocurrencies. Kaspersky statistics show that while the number of cryptominers decreased in 2019 and early 2020, since August 2020, this form of malware has shown a slight increase.
As Infosecurity Magazine reports, as cryptocurrency becomes increasingly profitable, it is likely that many cybercriminals will repurpose certain botnets to allow C&C servers, typically used in DDoS attacks, to reuse “infected” devices and use their computing power to mine cryptocurrency.
In January, Avira revealed that it had observed a 53% increase in software in the last quarter of 2020, which is linked to the rise in the value of cryptocurrencies and in particular Bitcoin.
Despite this quarterly decline in Q4 2020, DDoS attacks were still 10% higher compared to the same period in 2019. This is due to the continued increase in DDoS attacks during 2020, with cybercriminals taking advantage of the fact that the majority of people around the world are using computers and the Internet on a daily basis, in the context of the COVID-19. Kaspersky also noted that many educational institutions were targeted with this tactic in the last three months of 2020, including several schools in Massachusetts and Laurentian University in Canada.
Alexey Kiselev, Business Development Manager at Kaspersky DDoS Protection, said the following: “The DDoS attack market is currently affected by two opposing trends. On the one hand, people still rely heavily on the stable operation of online resources, which can make DDoS attacks an easy choice for malicious actors. However, with the rise in cryptocurrency prices, it may be more profitable to infect certain devices with miners. This resulted in the total number of DDoS attacks in Q4 2020 remaining fairly stable. And we can predict that this trend will continue in 2021.”
