Akamai Technologies has released a new State of the Internet report that shows monthly web application and API attack activity remained elevated during the first six months of 2024 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). ‘Digital Fortresses Under Siege: Threats to Modern Application Architectures’ shows that a monthly average of 40% of those web attacks target APIs. This is not surprising given the high adoption of APIs in EMEA, which is driven in part by regulation.
The number of Layer 3 and 4 DDoS attacks also grew steadily in EMEA, surpassing the number of attacks in North America in five of the past seven months. The financial services sector bore the brunt of these attacks with 1,523 attack events, followed by manufacturing at 890. Russian
hacktivist groups declared their intention to launch DDoS attacks on the European banking system, and we surmise that the main reason for the rise in DDoS attack events in the financial services industry is this geopolitical hacktivism.
‘Digital Fortresses Under Siege: Threats to Modern Application Architectures’ also finds:
The top three countries most impacted by web application and API attacks were the United Kingdom (20.5 billion), the Netherlands (15.6 billion), and Spain (12.7 billion).
Commerce was the most impacted industry for web attacks in EMEA driven by a high percentage of API attacks, and was also the most impacted industry for Layer 7 DDoS attacks
Layer 7 DDoS attacks on APIs remained fairly steady and accounted for 25% of those attacks.
Within EMEA, the areas with the highest number of Layer 7 DDoS attacks were Germany (461 billion) and the United Kingdom (366 billion), followed by Sweden (167 billion)
Richard Meeus, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, EMEA at Akamai, said: ‘Europe is beset by a barrage of API attacks. Applications are great enablers of communication but they can also be the Achilles’ heel of an organization if not shielded effectively. The increase of web application and API attacks in EMEA underscores the importance of protecting networks effectively to ensure no bad actors can leverage this increased attack surface. This is no longer just a revenue and reputation risk but also a matter of compliance with key EU directives such as NIS2 and DORA. ’
