Sharp rise in cyber-attacks amid COVID-19

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Global distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks tripled in the second quarter of 2020, said a report by global cybersecurity firm Kaspersky released Wednesday.

Kaspersky experts believe that behind the increasing malicious activity is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the pandemic, millions of people have opted to work from home, boosting the usage of digital technologies such as the internet and cellphones.

During the second quarter of 2020, DDoS attacks jumped 217% year-on-year, up 30% from the first quarter.

“The DDoS attack will send multiple requests to the attacked web resource – with the aim of exceeding the website’s capacity to handle multiple requests, and prevent the website from functioning correctly,” Kaspersky’s website said.