"Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI, with a recent from Darktrace revealing 78% of CISOs say AI-powered threats are already having a significant impact on their organizations. Earlier this summer, NetScout warned that the use of AI assistants and chatbots was starting to 'democratize' DDoS attacks by allowing lower-level hackers and those lacking technical expertise to wage highly effective attacks. According to Qrator, this is really starting to show, as AI tools become more readily available, enhancing the effectiveness of automated attacks."
"The Qrator research reveals a shift in the location of bot networks, too. The researchers put this down to accelerated digitalization in developing regions, resulting in a surge of devices with low cybersecurity awareness and numerous vulnerabilities. Brazil has recently overtaken Russia and the US as the largest source of application-layer (L7) DDoS attacks, now accounting for 19% of all malicious traffic observed in the third quarter of this year."
""The sheer number of vulnerable devices is nothing new - we've seen this before in previous years. What has changed in 2025 is that attackers can now find and capture them much faster and more efficiently, thanks to AI," said Andrey Leskin, chief technology officer at Qrator Labs. "To put it in perspective, last year, the largest DDoS botnet we recorded included around 227,000 devices. As you can see, using AI tools, attackers have increased the scale by about 25 times in just one""
AI tool availability has driven a record increase in DDoS botnet use, enabling attackers to find, capture, and coordinate vulnerable devices far faster and more efficiently. AI assistants and chatbots have lowered the skill barrier, allowing less technical actors to launch highly effective attacks. Botnet sources are shifting toward developing regions as accelerated digitalization produces many vulnerable devices with low cybersecurity awareness. Brazil now accounts for 19% of application-layer (L7) DDoS traffic and Vietnam moved from 15th to fourth. A tracked botnet reached 5.76 million infected devices. Botnet scale grew from roughly 227,000 devices to about 25 times larger within a year.
Read at IT Pro
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