F5 analysis reveals spikes, shift in cyberattacks following Covid-19 lockdowns

F5 analysis reveals spikes, shift in cyberattacks following Covid-19 lockdowns

Covid-19 has driven a significant spike in DDoS and password login attacks, according to new analysis from the F5 Security Incident Response Team (SIRT).

In January, the number of all reported incidents was half the average reported in previous years. As lockdowns hit from March onwards, incidents rose sharply. Numbers plateaued with a three-fold spike over previous years in April, and only began to fall back to normal in May and June. In July, they crept back up to twice the level seen at the same time in 2019.

The attacks fell into two large buckets: Distributed denial of service (DDoS) and password login attacks. Password login attacks were comprised of brute force and credential stuffing attacks. Both involve attackers trying to guess their way past a password login.

From January