• New report shows gambling sites accounted for 34.5 percent of DDoS attacks
• Nearly 74 percent of all Bitcoin sites experienced DDoS attack in Q3 of 2017

A new report into the global threat of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks shows that gambling sites like online casinos remain the leading target for hackers, but Bitcoin-related sites have also attracted a large volume of attacks.

The report, entitled Global DDoS Threat Landscape Q3 2017, was released by cyber security company Imperva and contains details of the main targets for DDoS hackers, who bombard sites with information, in return for a ransom payment, or to harm a competitor site.

Figures in the report show that gambling sites remain the most popular target for DDoS hackers. The gambling industryaccounted for 34.5 percent of all attacks, with gaming sites attracting 14.4 percent and internet services ranking third at 10.8 percent.

The focus on gambling operators led to Taiwan and the Philippines topping the report’s list of Top Attacked Countries, following a number of concerted attacks on Asian operators.

Bitcoin

But while gambling sites remain the most popular DDoS targets, the report reveals that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are increasingly coming under attack.

The rapid growth in the value of Bitcoin in 2017 has led to a significant number of DDoS incidents affecting cryptocurrencies.

According to the report, nearly 74 percent of Bitcoin sites experienced some form of DDoS attack during the third quarter of the year. While the total number of Bitcoin sites remains tiny compared to those in the other main categories, they still attracted 3.6 percent of all DDoS attacks.

The report also showed that DDoS attacks are becoming more prolonged and determined.

One third of network layer targets were attacked more than ten times during the period, and 16 percent of application layer targets suffered six or more attacks. The last year has also seen the emergence of more powerful botnets, and malware in mobile apps that was able to gain control of 70,000 Android phones across the globe.

Source: https://www.casinopedia.org/news/bitcoin-casino-ddos-attack-online-gambling-report