Further to the news that Google mitigated a 2.54 Tbps DDoS attack in 2017,  Anthony Chadd, SVP of Security Business Development at Neustar, made the following comment  :

“The latest news that Google mitigated the largest reported DDoS attack on record at 2.54 Tbps underlines the necessity for every organisation to take an always-on approach to DDoS protection. While the attack on Google took place three years ago, and was reportedly part of a nation state DDoS campaign against the tech giant, the news comes at a time when DDoS attacks are increasing in size, scale, and severity across the board – and impacting every industry. For instance, in Q1 of 2020, Neustar saw a 151% increase in the number of DDoS attacks compared to the same period in 2019. And, demonstrating the sheer scale of the attack on Google, these included the largest volumetric attack we mitigated in our history at 1.17 Tbps.

“Importantly, though, it is not only large-scale DDOs attacks that are on the rise. While volumetric attacks such as this one on Google capture the headlines, we’ve also seen bad actors striking at low enough volume to bypass the traffic thresholds that would trigger mitigation. The motivation behind these smaller-scale DDoS attacks is often to degrade performance or precision target vulnerable infrastructure like a VPN.

“Ultimately, every organisation with an Internet presence at risk of a DDoS attack – and due to the mass shift to remote working, this threat has never been more critical. As businesses continue to grapple with managing a remote workforce securely, they need to be hyper aware that cybercriminals will continue to take advantage of emerging network vulnerabilities. To provide 24-7 protection against DDoS attacks of every size, organisations need to be extra vigilant when it comes to detecting, examining, and filtering Internet traffic, as well as considering managed service options to ensure availability and security for all services.”