The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) held in Dubai towards the end of 2023 witnessed a surge in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against environmental services, marking a significant shift from previous trends. According to Cloudflare’s DDoS Threat Report for 2023 Q4, there was a staggering 61,839% increase in HTTP DDoS attack traffic targeting environmental websites during the last quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. This surge in attacks against environmental services accounted for half of all observed DDoS attacks during that quarter.
The trend of heightened DDoS attacks during environmental events and publications related to the United Nations, such as COP26 and COP27, was also noted by Cloudflare. The report highlighted the correlation between significant environmental events like the UN’s resolution on climate justice and the launch of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Freshwater Challenge with an increase in attacks on environmental websites.
DDoS attacks are a type of cyber-attack aimed at disrupting websites and online services by overwhelming them with more traffic than they can handle. Cloudflare identified three main types of DDoS attacks, namely HTTP request intensive attacks, IP packet-intensive attacks, and Bit-intensive attacks. In 2023, Cloudflare mitigated over 5.2 million HTTP DDoS attacks consisting of over 26 trillion requests, with a 20% decline compared to 2022. However, network-layer DDoS attacks saw an 85% increase in 2023, with over 8.7 million attacks mitigated by Cloudflare.
During Q4, Cloudflare observed a 117% year-over-year increase in network-layer DDoS attacks targeting retail, shipment, and public relations websites around Black Friday and the holiday season. The largest-ever DDoS attack recorded in 2023 reached 201 million requests per second, significantly higher than the previous record.
Additionally, the sophistication of DDoS attacks in 2023 reached unprecedented levels, with attackers exploiting vulnerabilities in the HTTP/2 protocol. Cloudflare’s report also highlighted a rise in DDoS attacks related to the Israel-Hamas conflict and Taiwan-related websites, further showcasing the evolving landscape of cyber threats.
To gather data on DDoS attacks, Cloudflare surveys each attacked customer on the nature of the attack and the success of the mitigation efforts. With an average of 164 responses per quarter over the past two years, Cloudflare continues to monitor and combat the increasing threat of DDoS attacks globally.