Global DDoS Attacks Up 108% in Q2 2025 as Hacktivism Makes a Comeback

StormWall, a cybersecurity company specializing in DDoS protection, has analyzed attack patterns targeting its clients globally during the second quarter of 2025 and released its findings. The global DDoS attacks volume has increased by 108%, the report shows.

According to StormWall data, three sectors accounted for 63% of all DDoS attacks. Government services accounted for 31% of attacks, marking a 138% increase year over year. Financial services accounted for 18% of attacks, an 83% year-over-year increase. The transportation infrastructure sector faced 14% of attacks, marking a 122% increase.

The fact that 63% of attacks targeted just three sectors related to critical infrastructure shows a shift from profit-motivated to politically driven campaigns. As hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Iran, and India and Pakistan intensified, the number of hacktivists using DDoS attacks as digital warfare or propaganda tools increased, StormWall report shows. Hacktivists and APTs typically target critical infrastructure to generate headlines or cause chaos..

From a technical standpoint, StormWall also observed shifts in attack techniques. For example, API attacks increased by 74% year-over-year. Meanwhile, probing attacks increased 5,000-fold across all sectors compared to Q2 2024. In the government vertical, these reconnaissance missions preceded 92% of major attacks, increasing by 8,000 times. Precision DDoS attacks were the most common, and the average size of botnets increased by ~87% from Q1 2025, with an average of 120,000-150,000 devices per botnet.

Looking at the geographic distribution of attacks, the United States absorbed 12.6% of the global DDoS traffic. China followed with 10.4%, India with 9.2%, Israel with 8.4%, and Iran with 8.1%. StormWall experts note that it is unusual for Israel and Iran to be among the top five most attacked countries.

An interesting finding in the report shows that attacks spread across more countries in Q2. While India’s share was 18.1% in Q1, no country’s share exceeded 12% in Q2. This is not the result of DDoS attacks decreasing in some regions — it’s the result of them increasing in others. In Q2, companies faced as many attacks as they did in an entire year just 24 months ago. Organizations using five-year-old defenses cannot handle this volume.