Work Smarter, Not Harder: The Evolution of DDoS Activity in 2020

The report reviews DDoS activity in 2020, highlighting high-profile incidents (COVID-era attacks including against HHS, the NZX extortion-driven outages, and a 2.3 Tbps CLDAP-based attack) and three persistent trends: large IoT botnets (e.g., Mirai-derived strains like Ttint), the growth of affordable DDoS-as-a-Service lowering the barrier to entry, and a resurgence of DDoS-for-extortion and impersonation; it closes with practical mitigation guidance such as contingency planning, provider coordination, visibility of digital exposure, and improving IoT security.