Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are increasing in size and frequency day by day. Prolexic Technologies – a provider of DDoS protection services - publishes a summary attack report each quarter.

Recently, Prolexic published its Q411 report. According to the report and the data collected during Q411 for global attacks, a significant rise in packet-per-second (PPS) volume was observed.

“Based on fourth quarter statistics, Prolexic predicts that 2012 will feature DDoS attacks that will be shorter in duration, but much more devastating in terms of packet-per-second volume,” said Paul Sop, chief technology officer at Prolexic, in a statement. “Think of it this way. In the past, attackers had a rifle. In 2012, they have a machine gun with a laser site.”

According to Prolexic, it had provided forecasts on the increase in PPS volume in its previous attack report and had also noted that attackers were changing their strategy. The Q411 Attack Report indicated that many DDoS attacks originated from Japan, a geographic location rarely in the top ten source countries and usually not known for large concentrations of botnets.

Apart from Japan, the other two countries from which attacks originated were China and Germany, with Japan-based IP addresses accounting for 35 percent of attacks, said the report.

In addition, the Q411 Attack Report also noted an increase in Layer 7 (application layer) attacks against e-Commerce companies as online retailers and ancillary service providers such as shippers were the prime attack targets during the fourth quarter holiday shopping season.

The data from fourth quarter also showed highest number of attacks during the week of December 3-10. Average attack duration was also significantly higher for attacks directed at e-Commerce businesses.

In Q311 report, Prolexic noted that average attack bandwidth was 5.2 Gbps compared to 2.1 Gbps, an increase of 148 percent. And, the average attack bandwidth was 2.6 Gbps in 2011 compared to 1.1 Gbps in 2010, an increase of 136 percent year over year.

According to Prolexic, the data for the Q411 report has been gathered and analyzed by the Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert). The team’s primary task is to monitor malicious cyber threats globally and analyzes DDoS attacks using proprietary techniques and equipment.

In addition, the team helps organizations adopt best practices and make more informed, proactive decisions about DDoS threats by identifying the sources and associated attributes of individual attacks. The PLXsert team is able to build a global view of DDoS attacks, through data forensics and post attack analysis.

Compared to Q410, the Q411 report indicated that Prolexic mitigated 45 percent more DDoS attacks; PPS volume increased 18-fold; and average attack duration was down to 34 hours from 43 hours.

As a DDoS mitigation provider, Prolexic offers solutions that leverage proprietary filtering techniques; cloud-based mitigation network; advanced routing; and patent-pending devices to combat all known types of DDoS attacks.