Fewer attacks, more force: Link11's European Cyber Report finds new DDoS records for the first half of 2026 - hackread.com
Brief
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, September 3rd, 2026, CyberNewswire
Super-botnets and hijacked cloud servers drive new bandwidth and packet-rate records as international law-enforcement pressure pushes attack counts down
Link11 has released its European Cyber Report for the first half of 2026, providing an overview of DDoS attack activity targeting European companies.
Although the number of DDoS attacks on the Link11 network decreased by 42 percent, the report records new highs for attack intensity across bandwidth, packet rate and cumulative data volume, indicating that attacks have become more targeted and intense.
New Records for Bandwidth, Packet Rate, and Data Volume
Although the number of attacks decreased by 42 percent, record highs were reached in terms of attack intensity in every category.
The highest measured bandwidth attack reached 2.
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Fewer attacks, more force: Link11's European Cyber Report finds new DDoS records for the first half of 2026 - hackread.com
Fewer attacks, more force: Link11's European Cyber Report finds new DDoS records for the first half of 2026 Hackread
Fewer attacks, more force: Link11’s European Cyber Report finds new DDoS records for the first half of 2026
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, September 3rd, 2026, CyberNewswire
Super-botnets and hijacked cloud servers drive new bandwidth and packet-rate records as international law-enforcement pressure pushes attack counts down
Link11 has released its European Cyber Report for the first half of 2026, providing an overview of DDoS attack activity targeting European companies.
Although the number of DDoS attacks on the Link11 network decreased by 42 percent, the report records new highs for attack intensity across bandwidth, packet rate and cumulative data volume, indicating that attacks have become more targeted and intense.
New Records for Bandwidth, Packet Rate, and Data Volume
Although the number of attacks decreased by 42 percent, record highs were reached in terms of attack intensity in every category.
The highest measured bandwidth attack reached 2. 3 Tbit/s—85 percent higher than the previous peak of 1. 2 Tbit/s in the first half of 2025.
The packet rate followed the same pattern, reaching a new peak of 322 million packets per second — up 56 percent from 207 million packets per second a year earlier.
Cumulative traffic also increased, rising from 438 to 705 terabytes over the six-month period — a 61 percent increase.
Super-Botnets Drive the Records, Law Enforcement Curbs the Count
The report attributes these records to super-botnets, such as Aisuru and its successor, Kimwolf, as well as a growing number of hijacked cloud servers.
These servers individually push far more bandwidth than a compromised home router or camera ever could.
The report credits the drop in raw attack numbers to sustained international law enforcement pressure, including the takedown of pro-Russian group NoName057(16)’s infrastructure in July 2025 during “Operation Eastwood.”