This is war: 1 in 2 online attacks targeted Singapore in Q1

The government is their favorite prey.

In spite of having one of the best internet connections in the world, the country remains vulnerable to online attackers. Singapore is the most frequent target of online attacks in the entire Asia-Pacific region, Akamai’s State of the Internet 1Q14 revealed today

According to the report, the Asia-Pacific Region absorbed 31% of all distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, while the Americas accounted for approximately 49% of all attacks.

“Nearly 50% of all attacks [in Asia-Pacific] were concentrated on financial institutions and government sites
within Singapore,” the report noted.

Here’s more from the report:

When we look at the number of attacks aggregated by industry, it is easy to see that the most significant decrease was in the Enterprise sector, which saw 78 (-49%) fewer attacks in the first quarter of 2014 as compared to the last quarter of 2013.

This is still a year-over-year increase of 11% for the Enterprise sector, but represents a significant quarter-over-quarter decline, particularly in the Business Services and Financial Services verticals.

The Public Sector made up for some of the decrease in attacks on Enterprise, with a 34% increase in attack traffic, led largely by the attacks against government targets within Singapore.

Beginning in the third quarter of 2013, Akamai started looking at the probability of repeated attacks against the same target. Akamai observed that the chances of a repeat attack are approximately one in four within the same quarter and one in three within the same year, numbers that are continuing to hold true overall.

Of the 164 organizations that faced DDoS attacks in the first quarter of 2014, 43 (26%) suffered repeated attacks. Five organizations were targeted more than five times within the quarter, with 17 distinct attacks the most attacks on one target.