Azure Updates: DDoS attack trends; Hybrid Benefit; Knowledge Mining Solution Accelerator

DDoS attacks are surging. That is according to Microsoft product manager Alethea Toh, who shared DDoS attack trends from Q3 and Q4 of 2021. DDoS-for-hire services led to a proliferation of attacks in the second half of the year, with a 30-fold increase in India during the month of October alone. Major technology companies like Blizzard were among those targeted, along with VoIP providers. Microsoft mitigated on average 1,955 attacks per day—and even mitigated a few attacks greater than 2.4 terabits per second. Many attacks are short, but the number of attacks lasting more than an hour has increased. Overall, UDP floods are the most common attack format, often targeting the gaming industry.

Senior product marketing manager Diana Gao encouraged customers not to “pay double” by using special licensing through Hybrid Benefit. During server migrations, Hybrid Benefit offers the ability to run on-prem and cloud infrastructure simultaneously, only charges for additional infrastructure, and provides extended security updates. Gao touted Hybrid Benefit to save on Windows Server and SQL Server, or to apply to unused on-prem SUSE Linux and RedHat subscriptions.