Financial services remain the top target of Layer 3 and Layer 4 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks for the second year in a row, according to Akamai Technologies’ report, Against All Odds: Attack Trends in Financial Services, which also notes that the financial services sector suffers from 34% of DDoS attacks, followed by gaming (18%) and high-tech (15%).
These layer 3 and 4 attacks impact networks and transport, overwhelming infrastructure and exhausting resources. The report attributes the rise in these attacks to geopolitical tensions that have heightened hacktivist activity, highlighting one of the largest cyberattacks recorded by Akamai against a financial firm in Israel.
Financial services suffer 34% of DDoS attacks, followed by the gaming sector (18%) and high-tech (15%).
“Cybercrime is a significant threat to the financial services industry, seeking to cause widespread disruption and serious economic damage,” said Francisco Arnau, Head of Akamai for Spain and Portugal. “This report is specifically designed to help financial services cybersecurity professionals around the world understand the increasingly complex threat landscape and best practices to protect their customers.”
Financial Services and DDoS Attacks
The study also mentions groups such as REvil, BlackCat (ALPHV), Anonymous Sudan, KillNet and NoName057, linked to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Other key data includes:
- 36% of impersonation and brand abuse attacks target financial services, followed by retail (26%).
- Phishing is the most commonly used technique for falsifying financial domains (68%), followed by brand impersonation (24%).
- There has been an increase in these layer 7 attacks targeting APIs, especially undocumented hidden APIs, which are vulnerable because they are not known to security teams.
Finally, the report highlights that the intensity of attacks does not always correspond to their frequency; although some months show few incidents, traffic spikes can be considerable, underlining the importance of assessing both the frequency and volume of attacks.
