DDoS – or distributed denial of service attacks – remain a serious source of disruption across the internet.

DDoS attacks continue to grow in their frequency and volume. And increasingly, they’re aligned to geopolitical events.

A driver is sites offering “DDoS for hire”. The groups behind these sites even offer DDoS as a service attacks for free. But cybercrime groups are making use of AI too.

This is leading to what researchers at NETSCOUT describe as a “digital battlefield", with DDoS attacks overwhelming underprepared defenders.

Our guest is Richard Hummel, director of threat intelligence at NETSCOUT.