Alongside the holiday spirit and festive decorations, this season has been marked by a series of high-profile DDoS attacks that made the headlines. Some of the more striking examples that took place around New Year’s Day included:
- Japan’s largest telco NTT Docomo disrupted by DDoS attack – 90+ million subscribers lost access to their website, news platforms, and mobile payment systems.
- Ukraine’s intelligence disrupts Lukoil services with cyberattack– Lukoil customers could not make payments at gas stations via the mobile application.
- Internet sites of several French cities hit by cyber attacks –Hackers used DDoS attacks to protest French support for Ukraine.
- Mizuho Bank and Resona Bank May Have Been Hit by Cyberattack – Two of the largest banks in Japan were hit, impacting the availability of online banking services.
- NIPOST’s Website Down, Suffers DDoS Attack – The Nigerian Postal Service’s site was down.
What’s behind this latest surge in DDoS attacks? Where are we headed in 2025? And how can enterprises successfully protect themselves from these ongoing attacks? Our 2025 DDoS Trends Report shares insights designed to help enterprises stay ahead of the DDoS threat and maintain uninterrupted business continuity throughout the year ahead.
Key Trends to Watch For
Some of the DDoS attack trends highlighted in our latest report – and which are based on MazeBolt research – include:
- The financial sector will remain a prime target for DDoS attacks, with politically motivated hacktivists and advanced botnets driving the surge
- Tools like DDoS-for-Hire will continue to make launching attacks easier and more affordable, leading to a significant rise in multi-vector assaults
- Stricter regulations, including DORA, NIS2, and SEC requirements, demand continuous simulation, proactive vulnerability management, and detailed reporting
- Politically motivated hackers are expected to continue targeting countries undergoing election cycles
The Cost to the Enterprise
DDoS attacks cost enterprises millions annually, with financial institutions among the hardest hit. Each damaging attack costs nearly $500,000. And with an average of 67 damaging DDoS attacks per year, the annual expense of damaging DDoS downtime to enterprise organizations comes to $25–35 million. Beyond the cost of the downtime, organizations are also faced with additional, long-term damage to the business including customer churn, compliance fines, and reputational damage.
SLAs Mean Damaging Downtime
DDoS attacks are driven by hidden vulnerabilities in DDoS protections, which attackers exploit to bypass defenses. Taking reactive measures for protection from DDoS downtime and relying on SLAs – which is the standard approach to handling the DDoS risk – merely increases the likelihood of damaging downtime. That’s because SLAs don’t kick into effect until after a damaging DDoS attack has already taken place.
Continuous DDoS Mitigation Prevents Damaging Attacks
Despite deploying traditional protections, enterprises continue to face damaging DDoS downtime because, on average, 37% of the attack surface remains vulnerable. To prevent DDoS attacks, organizations must make a shift from reactive mitigation to identifying and remediating vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
Preparing for the challenges we can expect in 2025 demands implementing continuous DDoS Vulnerability Management, a proactive solution that can prevent damaging DDoS downtime entirely.
Interested in learning more? Download the report!
