According to a report by Cloudflare, the number of DDoS attacks in the first quarter of 2025 has increased enormously compared to last year. Germany ranks as the number one primary target.
The number of DDoS attacks has increased by 358 percent in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year. In three months, Cloudflare detected and blocked almost as many attacks as in the entire year of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2024, the number of attacks again increased significantly. According to figures from Cloudflare’s research, Belgium does not appear to be among the main targets, while Germany ranks as number one.
Heavier and more targeted
Cloudflare reported that it mitigated a total of 20.5 million DDoS attacks in the first quarter of 2025. This number is just below the total of 21.3 million attacks in the entire year of 2024. Attacks on the network layer, in particular, saw a strong increase. In this segment, there were 16.8 million attacks, representing a year-on-year increase of 509 percent and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 397 percent.
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A notable portion of these attacks – 6.6 million – were directed at Cloudflare itself. These attacks were part of a prolonged, eighteen-day attack campaign with multiple vectors, including SYN flood, Mirai botnet, and SSDP amplification attacks.
Moreover, Cloudflare signaled a massive increase in the use of CLDAP amplification attacks, with a rise of 3,488 percent compared to the previous quarter. These attacks exploit the connectionless nature of the CLDAP protocol to carry out reflection attacks.
Targets
Regarding geographical distribution, Germany became the primary target of DDoS attacks, followed by Turkey and China. Notably, Hong Kong was the main source of attacks, with Indonesia and Argentina in second and third place. On Cloudflare’s heatmap, it can be seen that Belgium is not yet among the main targets.
The gambling and casino sector experienced the most attacks in the first quarter. This sector rose four places and took over the top position from the telecommunications sector. The aerospace sector also suffered heavily and climbed 40 places in the ranking, securing the tenth position.