13.5M Device Botnet Drives 2 Tbps DDoS Attacks on FinTech, Qrator Finds

Qrator Labs' Q1 2026 analysis reports explosive growth of a global DDoS botnet to ~13.5 million infected devices, rising multi-vector (L3/L4 + L7) attacks, and deployment of an Aeternum C2 loader that leverages the Polygon blockchain for decentralized command-and-control; critical sectors such as FinTech, banks, payment systems, IT, and betting were heavily targeted, including a 2.065 Tbps attack that peaked for 40 minutes.