US and China are Two Top Botnet Attack Targets
Anteromite/Shutterstock.com
The United States is both attacker and victim.
Though the U.S. has already recently suffered major cyberattacks in 2015, it's likely the hits will keep coming.
A new report released by Level 3 Communications tracking botnet activity in the first quarter of 2015 reveals the United States gives and receives the lion's share of botnet attacks.
The report shows that in the first quarter of 2015, the U.S. led the charge in generating control-and-command server traffic, or C2. Many European countries follow, with the United Kingdom and Western Europe making up 12 percent of C2 traffic.
The United States and China top the list of countries most targeted with botnet attacks, with each country receiving more than 500,000 attacks on unique IP addresses.
"Given the large Internet-connected population in China and the United States, it is not a surprise that they are top targets," the report stated. "The United States has a sizable number of heavily targeted private and public victims of interest to cybercriminals and malicious nation-state actors."
The report noted a rising trend in 2015 of botnets conducting denial-of-service attacks with blended attacks also on the rise. The two-pronged approach distracts IT employees while malware slips through the back end.
The majority of these attacks are aimed at the United States, but an increasing number is targeting European countries. The majority of the attacks are targeted toward the gaming industry and Internet service providers.
(Image via Anteromite/ Shutterstock.com)
NEXT STORY: FirstNet RFP, Navy CIO and S&T on Facebook