Antivirus maker Kaspersky says the volume of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the second quarter of 2020 "tripled" from the same period last year.

The Moscow-based cybersecurity firm, which makes it a top choice among the best antivirus programs, claims that the number of DDoS attacks against websites it observed in the second quarter increased 217% year over year.

Kaspersky noted that DDoS attacks in Q1 2020 were only "slightly up" from the number in Q1 2019, suggesting that attackers are taking advantage of the global coronavirus pandemic that began in earnest in Q2 2020.

"Kaspersky experts attribute the increase in malicious activity to the impact of COVID-19, as both cybercriminals and their targets had to rethink their summer plans," the press release stated.

Kaspersky further explained that the increase in DDoS attacks in the second quarter was unusually high.

This is because "the year typically sees a high volume of DDoS because it is peak business season, and the number of attacks begins to decline in late spring and summer."

Between the first and second quarters of 2019, these attacks decreased by 39%. Kaspersky also documented a 34% decrease in DDoS attacks during this period in 2018. This year, however, such attacks increased by 30% between Q1 and Q2.

"This trend is reflected in the number of commands received by bots from C&C servers, as intercepted and analyzed by Kaspersky's DDoS Intelligence system," the company explained.

DDoS attacks flood a single website or web server with massive amounts of traffic, crippling the site's ability to properly respond to visitors and effectively cutting them off from the world. The targeted site is not harmed, only taken offline.

Kaspersky also adds that "the highest number of attacks per day was almost 300 in the second quarter (registered on April 9)," while "the record for Q1 2020 was 242."

"This year, people were not able to enjoy the normal holiday season due to the implementation of COVID-19 lockdown measures in many areas," said Alexei Kiselev, Business Development Manager of the Kaspersky DDoS Protection team. [This] made this summer a busy period for online businesses and information resources, as more people than usual relied on online resources for both personal and work-related activities," Kiselev added. As a result, we've seen unprecedented activity in the DDoS market." And so far, there is no reason to predict a decline."