New Delhi, Jan 18 (IANS): China continues to lead in hosting the highest number of potential Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber attack weapons, including both amplification weapons and botnet agents, to install modern malware on organisations globally, a new report showed on Tuesday.

The number of total botnet agents was almost halved in the first half of 2021, with China hosting 44 per cent of the total number of drones available worldwide, according to the report by US-based tech firm A10 Networks.

The total number of DDoS weapons increased by approximately 2.5 million in the reporting period.

The US remains the second largest source of DDoS weaponry, particularly amplification weapons.

A DDoS attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources.

"DDoS attacks are not limited to a specific geographical location and can originate from and attack organisations anywhere in the world. These attacks are powered by weapons that are distributed globally, with higher concentrations found where internet-connected populations are most dense," said the report.

For the second reporting period in a row, China led the list of countries hosting the most DDoS weapons with almost 2 million amplification weapons and botnet agents. The US followed closely behind.

"Finally, organisations are paying more attention to infectious malware, like Mozi. In fact, some vigilante groups have even started using DDoS attacks as a defensive measure, attacking systems that exhibit scanning behaviour," the report mentioned.