DDoS Attack Trends in Q1 2025: Key Findings from Garda Group's Analysis

The cybersecurity landscape in Q1 2025 saw a significant rise in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, with new tactics and sector-specific targeting emerging. According to research by Garda Group’s Competence Center, the first quarter of 2025 witnessed a 110% year-over-year increase in L3–L4 DDoS attacks, with amplification techniques accounting for 17% of all incidents¹. The IT sector remained the primary target, followed by finance, oil/gas, and government entities.

Key Trends and Attack Patterns

The data reveals a shift toward more calculated attack methodologies. Threat actors increasingly employed low-resource probing before escalating to full-scale assaults, particularly against application-layer (L7) defenses². Moscow bore the brunt of these attacks with over 60,000 incidents, while the Northwestern and Urals Federal Districts experienced 17,000 and 12,000 attacks respectively³.

Protocol exploitation saw notable innovation, with attackers leveraging pSignal 20 and other amplification vectors to maximize impact while minimizing resource expenditure⁴. This trend suggests threat actors are prioritizing efficiency and stealth over brute-force methods.

Sector-Specific Targeting

The oil and gas sector experienced a 67% increase in attacks compared to Q1 2024, averaging 27 attacks per company³. Government entities faced 15,500 attacks, while financial institutions endured 18,700 incidents – a spike coinciding with geopolitical developments in March⁵.

Banking sector attacks demonstrated particular sophistication, with threat actors combining DDoS with AI-aided phishing campaigns that saw a 17% month-over-month increase⁶. This multi-vector approach created additional pressure on security teams already managing volumetric threats.

Defensive Measures and Mitigation

Hybrid protection systems emerged as a primary defense strategy. Garda Anti-DDoS partnered with Inline Telecom Solutions to deploy combined WAF and traffic scrubbing solutions for Innopolis data centers⁷. Regional providers like Solar MSS reported improved resilience through these collaborative approaches³.

The research highlights the importance of adaptive defense mechanisms capable of detecting both low-resource probing and high-volume assaults. Organizations that implemented layered protection strategies – combining behavioral analysis, rate limiting, and protocol validation – demonstrated the highest success rates in attack mitigation.

Future Outlook

The Q1 2025 data suggests DDoS attacks will continue evolving toward precision targeting rather than indiscriminate disruption. The integration of AI into both offensive and defensive operations will likely accelerate, creating an arms race in attack automation and detection capabilities.

Security teams should prioritize monitoring for protocol-specific anomalies and prepare response plans for multi-vector campaigns that combine DDoS with other threat vectors. The increasing regionalization of attacks also suggests the need for localized defense strategies tailored to specific geographic threat profiles.