Arbor Networks'Third Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security
Reporthighlightsbotnetsand the increased size of
distributed denial of service(DDoS) attacks
as a growing threat to ISPs.
For the first time, botnets surpassed DDoS attacks as the top
threat identified by service providers.
Arbor Networks says it has security customer relationships with
more than 70% of the global service provider community, which
enabled it to gather input from 70 tier-1, tier-2 and hybrid IP
network operators in North America, Europe and Asia for the
report.
The report covers the 12-month period from July 2006 through to
June 2007.
This year, a much larger percentage of the respondent pool
believed bots and botnets to be a larger threat than DDoS attacks.
Bots are PCs remotely taken over by hackers without the knowledge
of their owners and are usually linked together to form botnets to
spread malware and spam.
The threat of DDoS attacks still looms large for ISPs though.
Although mid-level DDoS attacks have plagued the internet since
2000, survey respondents reported a widening gap between common
mid-level "amateur"
attacks and multi-gigabit "professional" efforts involving tens
of thousands of bot hosts.
Most surveyed ISPs reported significant improvements in the
sophistication and coordination of DDoS attacks.
In addition, says the report, voice over IP services are
vulnerable with a lack of security protection across ISPs. The
report found that only 20% of ISPs currently have specific tools or
mechanisms to monitor and detect threats against VoIP services.