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DDoS attacks now a dominant means of waging political cyber-warfare

Published

3 days ago

April 3, 2025

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are outpacing many traditional cyber threats and are no longer just a tool but a “dominant geopolitical weapon,” according to network security firm Netscout.

Global DDoS activity increased by 12.7% in the second half of 2024 compared to the first half, totaling almost 9 million attacks, according to the firm.

A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal web traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic.

The largest increases have been in Latin America and the Asia Pacific regions, with around 30% and 20% increases from the first half, respectively.

Netscout reported that there were a total of 7.9 million DDoS attacks in the first half of 2024, with a combined total of 16.8 million for the full year, up almost 30% from the 13 million attacks the firm recorded in 2023.

Attackers have been using the internet disruption tool to “exploit moments of national vulnerability to amplify chaos and erode trust in institutions,” the researchers said.

The report described DDoS attacks as “precision-guided digital weapons” capable of disrupting infrastructure at critical moments, highlighting how they have been deployed during sociopolitical conflicts, elections, protests, and policy disputes.

Weekly DDoS statistics, 2024. Source: Netscout

AI is supercharging DDoS attacks

DDoS-for-hire services, including booters and stressers, are “more powerful than ever,” they added, as cyber criminals leverage AI and automation to bypass CAPTCHA, with automation “advancing toward capabilities such as behavior mimicry and real-time attack adjustments.”

The researchers concluded that DDoS attacks “are no longer just about raw bandwidth,” adding that they are “adaptive, persistent, and deeply embedded in modern cyber and geopolitical conflicts.”

“The shift to high-powered enterprise infrastructure, turnkey reconnaissance, the rise of AI-enhanced automation and the expansion of DDoS-for-hire services mean that attackers are evolving faster than ever.”

The role of DDoS attacks is evolving, Corero Network Security chief technology officer Ashley Stephenson told Forbes recently, adding, “By automating tasks that were once labor-intensive or required specialized skills, AI lowers the barrier to entry for attackers.”

A DDoS attack targeted Elon Musk’s social media platform X in August, aimed at disrupting his interview with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

X was targeted again in March when a massive cyberattack prevented some users from accessing the platform.

A hacking group with ties to Russia called “Dark Storm” claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack on Musk’s platform, claiming that it was not politically motivated.

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Billionaire investor would 'not be surprised' if Trump postpones tariffs

Published

5 hours ago

April 6, 2025

Crypto-friendly billionaire investor Bill Ackman is considering the possibility that US President Donald Trump may pause the implementation of his controversial proposed tariffs on April 7.

“One would have to imagine that President Donald Trump’s phone has been ringing off the hook. The practical reality is that there is insufficient time for him to make deals before the tariffs are scheduled to take effect,” Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, said in an April 5 X post.

Trump may postpone tariffs to make more deals, says Ackman

“I would, therefore, not be surprised to wake up Monday with an announcement from the President that he was postponing the implementation of the tariffs to give him time to make deals,” Ackman added.

On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries, which took effect on April 5. Harsher reciprocal tariffs on trading partners with which the US has the largest trade deficits are scheduled to kick in on April 9.

Ackman — who famously said “crypto is here to stay” after the FTX collapse in November 2022 — said Trump captured the attention of the world and US trading partners, backing the tariffs as necessary after what he called an “unfair tariff regime” that hurt US workers and economy “over many decades.”

Following Trump’s announcement on April 2, the US stock market shed more value during the April 4 trading session than the entire crypto market is currently worth. The fact that crypto held up better than the US stock market caught the attention of both crypto industry supporters and skeptics.

Source: Cameron Winklevoss

Prominent crypto voices such as BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss also recently showed their support for Trump’s tariffs.

Ackman said a pause would be a logical move by Trump — not just to allow time for closing potential deals but also to give companies of all sizes “time to prepare for changes.” He added:

“The risk of not doing so is that the massive increase in uncertainty drives the economy into a recession, potentially a severe one.”

Ackman said April 7 will be “one of the more interesting days” in US economic history.

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Meta's Llama 4 puts US back in lead to ‘win the AI race’ – David Sacks

Published

8 hours ago

April 6, 2025

The White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks says Meta’s release of its latest AI model, Llama 4, has pushed the United States into the lead in the global race for artificial intelligence dominance.

“For the US to win the AI race, we have to win in open source too, and Llama 4 puts us back in the lead,” Sacks said in an April 5 X post, as speculation continues to mount over the US and China competing for the top spot in the global AI race.

Sacks has been outspoken about the AI race since taking on his role following US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Just over a week into the job, Sacks said he is “confident in the US, but we can’t be complacent.”

Llama 4 “best in their class for multimodality,” says Meta

Sack’s latest comment came after Meta’s AI division said in an X post on the same day that it is introducing the fourth generation of its Llama models, Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick.

Source: David Sacks

“Our most advanced models yet and the best in their class for multimodality,” Meta said.

Meta said its Llama 4 Scout model has 17 billion active parameters and uses 16 experts.

The company claims it outperforms rival large language models — Gemma 3, Gemini 2.0 Flash-lite, and Mistral 3.1 — “across a broad range of widely accepted benchmarks.”

Meanwhile, Llama 4 Maverick also has 17 billion active parameters but is configured with 128 experts. Meta claimed the Maverick model can outperform GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 Flash “across a broad range of widely accepted benchmarks.”

Llama 4 Maverick instruction-tuned benchmarks. Source: Meta

It also said Maverick can perform similarly to DeepSeek v3 on “reasoning and coding tasks” despite using only half the active parameters.

Less than a year ago, in July 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that in 2025, he expects Llama models to become “the most advanced in the industry.” It has been just over two years since Meta first released the limited version of Llama 1 in February 2023.

At the time, Meta said it was “blown away” by the demand, receiving over 100,000 requests for access.

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Kalshi traders place the odds of US recession in 2025 at over 61%

Published

13 hours ago

April 5, 2025

Traders on the Kalshi prediction market place the odds of a US recession in 2025 at 61%, following the sweeping tariff order signed by President Donald Trump on April 2.

Kalshi uses the standard criteria of a recession, two business quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth, as reported by the United States Department of Commerce.

Odds of a US recession on the prediction platform have nearly doubled since March 20 and mirror the current 2025 US recession odds on Polymarket, which traders on the platform currently place at 60%.

The macroeconomic outlook for 2025 deteriorated rapidly following US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff order and the ensuing sell-off in capital markets, sparking fears of a prolonged bear market.

Odds of US recession in 2025 top 60% on the Kalshi prediction market. Source: kalshi

Trump’s executive order throws markets in disarray

The US President’s executive order established a 10% baseline tariff rate for all countries and different “reciprocal” tariff rates on trading partners with existing tariffs on US import goods.

Trump’s announcement triggered an immediate stock market sell-off, wiping away over $5 trillion in shareholder value in a matter of days.

Fears of a recession continue to grow as market analysts warn of a potentially protracted trade war that negatively impacts global markets and suppresses risk asset prices, including cryptocurrencies.

Meanwhile, President Trump has expressed confidence that the tariffs will strengthen the US economy long-term and correct any trade imbalances.

“The markets are going to boom,” the President said on April 3, describing the current market sell-off as an expected part of the process.

The stock market sell-off continues as stocks shed trillions in shareholder value. Source: TradingView

Asset manager Anthony Pompliano recently speculated that President Trump deliberately crashed markets to bring down interest rates.

Pompliano cited the reduction in 10-year US Treasury bonds as evidence that the President’s strategy of forcing a recession to impact rates is working.

Interest rates on 10-year US Treasury bonds declined from approximately 4.66% in January 2025 to just 4.00% on April 5. President Trump is also pressuring Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell to lower short-term interest rates.

“This would be a perfect time for Fed chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates,” Trump wrote in an April 4 Truth Social post.

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