Tom Emmons is a data enthusiast who leads a team focused on machine learning and automation at Akamai. His areas of security expertise are in DDoS and application security. Never before has the risk of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack been higher. In 2020, we saw record-breaking attacks, a DDoS extortion campaign impacting thousands of organizations globally, more emergency customer support, and more Akamai customers attacked than any year on record -- and we've been successfully fighting DDoS attacks since 2003! We also saw a big increase in attacks targeting verticals that haven't seen as much activity of late, with 7 out of the 11 industries that we track seeing peak attack counts in 2020. \r\n What drove this second renaissance of DDoS activity? DDoS risk profiles changed rapidly with the onset of COVID-19 as we increasingly relied on digital solutions in reaction to the global pandemic.…