While NTP amplification attacks have been a threat for many years, a number of new DDoS attack toolkits have made it easier for malicious actors to launch attacks with just a handful of servers. With the current batch of NTP amplification attack toolkits, malicious actors could launch 100 Gbps attacks – or larger – by leveraging just a few vulnerable NTP servers.
A troubling DDoS attack trend
In just one month (February 2014 vs. January 2014):
●The number of NTP amplification attacks increased 371.43 percent
●Average peak DDoS attack bandwidth increased 217.97 percent
●The average peak DDoS attack volume increased 807.48 percent
Unlike the largest attacks of the past two years, the NTP amplification attacks were not focused on any particular sector. Industries targeted by NTP amplification attacks in February included finance, gaming, e-Commerce, Internet and telecom, media, education, software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and security.
In the Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert) lab environment, simulated NTP amplification attacks produced amplified responses of 300x or more for attack bandwidth and 50x for attack volume, making this an extremely dangerous attack method.