“Headless” browsers pummeled a trading platform’s website this past week in a rare form of a DDoS attack. The attack employed some 180,000 IP addresses and employed a version of the Phantom JS headless browser toolkit. DDoS attacks increasingly have moved up the stack to the application layer, mainly for more targeted purposes. According to new data from Arbor Networks, DDoS is getting more powerful, but their duration is declining. The average DDoS size thus far is 2.64 Gbps for the year, an increase of 78 percent from 2012.”]
Source: https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/ddos-attack-used-headless-browsers-in-150-hour-siege