DDoS now a strategic threat

DDoS attacks within the financial sector aren’t letting up, and finance is a threat actor’s top target.

Threat actors use distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt a website or service by inundating it with fake traffic.

Bad actors use this method for various reasons, often to attack many different sectors.

However, research from nonprofit cybersecurity company FS-ISAC and cybersecurity and cloud computing company Akamai has found that the financial sector is one of the most likely sectors to be affected by DDoS attacks.

According to the firm's analysis, DDoS attacks on the financial sector are among the most prolific, as this sector is the most likely to be targeted.

These attacks only spiked in October 2024 and continue to increase in frequency.

"DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, evolving from simple network flooding to targeted, multidimensional assaults that exploit intricate vulnerabilities across the entire supply chain," said Teresa Walsh, FS-ISAC's chief intelligence officer and managing director, EMEA.

FS-ISAC said the attack surface has widened as the finance sector relies heavily on digital tools like Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

DDoS attacks targeting APIs have increased by 58% between 2023 and 2024, the analysis found.

Cybercriminals are also leveraging high bandwidths and more sophisticated computational tools to launch efficient and cheap DDoS attacks.

The DDoS as a service industry also disguises attackers, making it hard for relevant authorities to track them down.

Geopolitical tensions have also fueled DDoS attacks, Akamai said, particularly the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars.

One place that has been hit hardest is the Asia-Pacific region, which makes up 38% of all DDoS attacks.

There are many reasons for launching DDoS attacks. One way hackers might use DDoS attacks is for extortion, meaning that bad actors will flood a site with malicious traffic, only stopping once a sum of money has been paid.

Ideological reasons are also a springboard for these attacks. For example, geopolitical tensions may be the catalyst for such attacks.

The report suggests that DDoS attacks, which were once just annoying, are becoming a “strategic threat” to the financial sector.