This document discusses the risks of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and the growing threat posed by the internet of things (IoT). It summarizes research that identified over 1.2 million unprotected IoT devices. It is predicted that billions of IoT devices will be vulnerable. The document warns that DDoS attacks may reach terabits per second from botnets composed of IoT devices and that critical infrastructure is not adequately prepared to handle such large-scale attacks. It concludes by recommending the development of early warning systems and trusted networking initiatives to help address the problem.