As the Communications Commissioner confirms a recent wave of DDoS attacks affecting organisations in Cyprus in mid-March, Qrator Labs has mitigated a large-scale UDP flood targeting a Cyprus-based iGaming platform. The attack exceeded 2 Tbps at peak and, unusually for this type of attack, sustained high-intensity traffic for more than 40 minutes.
In total, 11 traffic spikes were observed during the incident, with four of them exceeding 1 Tbps, indicating a sustained and multi-stage attack pattern rather than a single short-lived burst. The attack also stood out in terms of packet rate, reaching nearly 1 billion packets per second at peak.
DDoS volumes of this magnitude are typically observed only in very short bursts, as attackers tend to discontinue high-intensity traffic once it becomes clear that the target is effectively protected and the attack is not achieving the intended impact. In this case, however, the repeated spikes suggest that the attackers made several attempts to adjust their approach and sustain pressure on the target, but were ultimately unsuccessful.
As recent industry observations show, the scale and intensity of DDoS attacks continues to grow. This trend is driven by the decreasing cost of launching high-intensity attacks due to the use of AI and IoT botnets, with some estimates suggesting a reduction of up to 95% over the past year. This means that attackers can launch and sustain high-intensity DDoS attacks more frequently and with fewer resource constraints.
Digital-first sectors remain among the primary targets of such attacks. The majority of DDoS activity is concentrated in industries such as fintech, e-commerce, IT, media, and iGaming, where service availability directly impacts revenue, making such platforms particularly attractive targets for sustained, high-intensity attacks.
“Terabit-scale attacks are no longer exceptional, with attackers increasingly capable of generating extremely high traffic volumes. In the past, threat actors tended to stop if results were not immediate. Today, the availability of large, low-cost botnets allows cybercriminals to sustain high-intensity attacks for longer periods. As recent incidents in Cyprus show, this makes robust DDoS protection essential for maintaining service availability,” says Andrey Leskin, Chief Technology Officer at Qrator Labs.
