Digital Attack Map is a live data visualization of DDoS attacks around the globe, built through a collaboration between Google Ideas and Arbor Networks. The tool surfaces anonymous attack traffic data to let users explore historic trends and find reports of outages happening on a given day.
Why?
DDoS Attacks Matter
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks can be used to make important online information unavailable to the world. Sites covering elections are brought down to influence their outcome, media sites are attacked to censor stories, and businesses are taken offline by competitors looking for a leg up. Protecting access to information is important for the Internet and important for free expression.
Visualizing Trends
Understanding the raw data behind DDoS Attacks is not intuitive. As a result, the impact, scale and scope of the challenge can be easily overlooked. We hope this tool allows more people to understand the challenges posed by DDoS attacks. We also hope it triggers a dialogue about how we can work together to reduce the threat of DDoS Attacks, improving the Internet for everyone.
Who?
Google Ideas is a think/do tank at Google that explores how technology can enable people to confront threats in the face of conflict, instability or repression. We connect users, experts and engineers to research and seed new technology-driven initiatives. Google Ideas worked in partnership with Google's Big Picture Team to design and develop the Digital Attack Map.
The "Big Picture" team, a part of Google research, creates interactive visualizations to captivate and delight users. They blend algorithmic, data-driven approaches with fluid design to make complex data more accessible. They portray large-scale data sets -- such as books, videos, images, news, or social behavior -- in creative ways that simultaneously educate and entertain.
DDoS attack data is provided by Arbor Networks. Established in 2000, Arbor provides network security and management solutions for some of the world’s largest and most complex networks. DDoS attack data is sourced from Arbor’s ATLAS® global threat intelligence system. To learn more, visit the ATLAS Threat Portal.