Domain Name System (DNS) water torture attacks

Complex, multi-vector mitigations

The volume of DDoS attacks continues to be high. Lumen mitigated more than 8,600 DDoS attacks in Q1 – a 40% increase year-over-year and the second-busiest quarter in two years.

Consistent with previous observations, DDoS attack activity increased around U.S. holidays. In Q1, the busiest holiday for threat actors was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Lumen researchers theorize that attackers focus their efforts on or around holidays because staffing levels are typically lower.

Real-time bot protection. ThreatX blocked 25 billion application requests in Q1, representing 42% of all its customers' traffic. Of the blocked traffic, more than 30% came from bots. This volume underscores the need for real-time API and application protection and tightly integrated bot mitigations solutions as part of a comprehensive security strategy.

The telecommunications industry continues to be highly targeted. Eighty-five percent of the largest 1,000 DDoS attacks that Lumen mitigated in Q1 targeted the telecommunications industry. In addition, more than 700,000 of the application requests that ThreatX blocked targeted telecom customers – the third most-targeted industry after banking and advertising.