DDoS attacks on financial sector treble

Financial services firms were targeted by three times as many distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the first quarter of 2012 than in the previous three months, a study has revealed.

There was also a 3,000% increase in malicious packet traffic, according to the latest Quarterly Global DDoS Attack Report by security firm Prolexic Technologies. The company mitigated more attack traffic in the first quarter of 2012 than it did in the whole of the previous year.

“This quarter was characterised by extremely high volumes of malicious traffic directed at our financial services clients,” said Neal Quinn, Prolexic’s vice president of operations. “We expect other verticals beyond financial services, gaming and gambling to be on the receiving end of these massive attack volumes as the year progresses."