DDoS attack statistics

How many DDoS attacks happen, and how often?

• Cloudflare mitigated 47.1 million DDoS attacks in 2025, up 121% year over year.
• That averages about 5,376 attacks every hour, or roughly 1.5 per second.
• In Q1 2025 alone, it blocked 20.5 million, matching 96% of its entire 2024 total.
• Network-layer attacks more than tripled compared with the prior year.
• Across all threat types, Cloudflare blocks over 230 billion threats a day.

DDoS has become background noise on the internet. At roughly 1.5 attacks per second on one network alone, these assaults are no longer rare events but a constant, automated pressure that large providers and internet-facing businesses now face.

What is the largest publicly disclosed DDoS attack?

• The largest attack Cloudflare has publicly disclosed peaked at 31.4 Tbps in late 2025.
• Despite its scale, it lasted just 35 seconds.
• Cloudflare tied it to the Aisuru-Kimwolf botnet and related hyper-volumetric activity.
• That botnet spans an estimated 1 to 4 million hosts, many hacked Android TVs.
• The attack was about 5.6 times larger than Cloudflare’s 2024 record of 5.6 Tbps.

The record keeps climbing. Cloudflare’s publicly disclosed DDoS size record was reset repeatedly across 2025, as botnets like Aisuru-Kimwolf harnessed millions of insecure smart devices to generate once-unthinkable traffic volumes.

Which industries were most attacked in Cloudflare’s DDoS data?

• In Cloudflare’s Q4 2025 data, telecommunications, service providers and carriers were most attacked.
• IT and services ranked second, having previously held the top spot.
• Gambling and casinos placed third, with gaming fourth.
• Cloudflare also said providers of generative AI services were heavily targeted.
• These sectors share a role as critical, latency-sensitive infrastructure.

In Cloudflare’s data, the targeting follows leverage. Attackers hit the backbone industries that other businesses depend on, because knocking out a telecom or service provider creates cascading disruption far beyond the single victim. For protection, see our CDN market share research.

How long do most DDoS attacks last?

Note: duration figures come from Cloudflare’s Q1 2025 network data and vary by attack type.

• In Cloudflare’s Q1 2025 data, 89% of network-layer attacks ended within 10 minutes.
• Among HTTP attacks, 75% ended within 10 minutes.
• The record-setting 31.4 Tbps attack lasted just 35 seconds.
• Hyper-volumetric bursts are a major high-end risk, even though they are not the majority.
• This speed demands autonomous, automated mitigation.

The shift to brief, overwhelming bursts has changed defense entirely. When an attack peaks and ends in under a minute, there is no time for a human to react, so only automated, always-on mitigation can keep a site online.

How much does a DDoS attack cost a business?

Note: cost figures are estimates drawn from different studies, years and company sizes, so treat them as directional rather than precise.

• A commonly cited older Ponemon/Radware estimate put DDoS downtime at about $22,000 per minute, though actual costs vary widely.
• TechInsurance cites roughly $120,000 in restoration and operations costs for small and midsize businesses affected by a DDoS attack.
• Check Point says smaller businesses may face less than $100,000 in losses, while larger organizations can exceed $1 million.
• StormWall says hourly DDoS-for-hire services may cost around $38 per hour.
• Launching an attack can be orders of magnitude cheaper than responding to one, depending on the target and incident.

The economics can be brutally lopsided. Some DDoS-for-hire services are advertised at low hourly prices, while recovery, lost revenue and operational disruption can push victims into six-figure or seven-figure losses depending on the business and incident. See our cost of downtime research.

How is DDoS attack frequency and size trending?

• Attack frequency rose 121% in 2025, more than doubling in a single year.
• Attack size grew over 700% compared with large attacks Cloudflare saw in late 2024, with one reaching 31.4 Tbps.
• Hyper-volumetric attacks grew about 40% quarter over quarter in late 2025.
• Cloudflare’s broader 2026 threat reporting says AI is lowering the barrier for sophisticated cyberattacks, while its DDoS reporting ties record attack sizes mainly to massive botnets and autonomous mitigation.
• The DDoS protection market is projected to top $10 billion by 2030.

Both dimensions are compounding at once, more attacks and bigger ones. Cloudflare ties the largest DDoS records to massive botnets such as Aisuru-Kimwolf, while its broader threat reporting says AI is lowering the barrier for sophisticated cyberattacks. Together, those trends make automated protection a baseline need rather than a luxury.

Sources & additional resources

• Cloudflare. “2025 Q4 DDoS Threat Report.” Cloudflare.
• Cloudflare. “DDoS Threat Report for 2025 Q1.” Cloudflare.
• Cloudflare. “DDoS Threat Report for 2024 Q4.” Cloudflare.
• Cloudflare. “2026 Threat Intelligence Report.” Cloudflare.
• MarketsandMarkets. “DDoS Protection and Mitigation Security Market.” MarketsandMarkets.
• Radware. “How Much Can a DDoS Attack Cost Your Business?.” Radware.
• TechInsurance. “How Much Will a DDoS Attack Cost Your Small Business?” TechInsurance.
• StormWall. “The Cost of a DDoS Attack.” StormWall.
• G2. “DDoS Attack Statistics.” G2.
• Perimeter 81. “What DDoS Attacks Really Cost.” Check Point.

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