Cybersecurity firm reports Telco, Entertainment, Government clients most targeted by DDoS in Q1.

Based on an analysis of DDoS attacks encountered in its own customer base across eight industry verticals (across the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East),during the first quarter of 2025 (Q1), a Distributed Denial of Service protection solutions firm has released so findings to the public.
First, the data shows that, within its customer ecosystem, the telecommunications, entertainment, and government sectors had experienced the highest proportion of recorded DDoS activity, together accounting for nearly 70% of all incidents observed. This represents a shift from the previous quarter in its data, when fintech APIs were more frequently targeted within the firm’s network.
Second, within the Q1 dataset, the telecommunications sector had seen the largest share of attacks (28%), followed by entertainment platforms (26%) and government services (14%), which also experienced the highest growth rate compared to the previous quarter. Some of these attacks were likely linked to politically motivated threat actors, consistent with broader industry observations of increased hacktivist activity.

Third, significant botnet activity was also noted in the first quarter of the year, including attacks launched by large-scale IoT botnets. These botnets were responsible for high-intensity DDoS campaigns, with some attacks reaching tens of millions of packets per second. Approximately 70% of the attacks mitigated appeared to be related to hacktivism, based on the firm’s analysis of traffic sources. Hacktivists often target high-profile sectors such as telecoms, gaming platforms, and government services, while fintech saw relatively fewer attacks among the firm’s clients during this period.

Fourth, the Asia-Pacific ecosystem had the following attack volumes: India (18%), China (16%), Japan (12%), and Taiwan (10%), reflecting both IoT botnet distribution and regional political tensions for the firm’s customer base.

Finally, StormWall, the firm that released its Q1 findings, also mentioned lowered DDoS attack rates in its ecosystem in sectors including transportation (9%), finance (8%), retail (6%), logistics (4%), and education (3%), experienced lower volumes of DDoS activity.

Note: Independent industry reports indicate that attack targets and volumes can vary significantly by region, sector, and threat actor motivation.