The increase in online gaming attracted attention from attackers, resulting in nearly 77% of cyber attacks targeting online gaming and gambling industries in Q3 2020. More than a third of these entertainment attacks focused on online gaming targets. Nexusguard analysts also reported a 287% increase in total DDoS attacks in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. Online gaming platforms’ sensitivity to latency and availability issues makes them ideal DDoS attack targets, and the online gaming environment is target-rich for perpetrators to capitalize during the pandemic.
- Online Gaming Industry is now a Hotbed for DDoS Attacks: 99.5% of cyber attacks were volumetric in nature, with 99.4% of attacks consisting of single vector attacks. Perpetrators aim to consume all bandwidth so that gamers suffer the side effects of latency and then switch to game server hosts with faster and more stable connectivity.
- DDoS Protection Service Industries need to Step up their Game: Online gaming is snowballing in part due to the growth of cloud computing as well as the limited options for home entertainment during the pandemic, providing cyber attackers with a wide population of targets to exploit. Game service providers, CSPs and other organizations should take steps to safeguard service, including segregating applications to minimize collateral damage or rehearsing incident response drills to reduce service disruption during attacks.”said Juniman Kasman, chief technology officer for Nexusguard.
