Distributed denial of service attacks on the rise, online gaming remains top target

The number of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks is on the rise and online gaming sites remain the number one target.

According to the latest State of the Internet Security report by Akamai Technologies, the number of DDOS attacks in the first quarter of 2016 was up 125% from Q1 2015 and up 22.5% from Q4 2015.

Online gaming sites – which includes not only gambling but also console gaming networks – were the targets in 55% of the Q1 DDOS attacks, about the same as in Q4. Software & technology sites ranked a distant second at 25%, while media & entertainment were third with just 5%.

On the plus side, the average duration of Q1’s DDOS attacks was 16.14 hours, down more than one-third from Q1 2015.