2 min Security

Cloudflare handles record-breaking 5.6 Tbps DDoS attack

Cloudflare handles record-breaking 5.6 Tbps DDoS attack

The largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack peaked at 5.6 terabits per second and was carried out by a Mirai-based botnet with 13,000 infected devices.

The attack took place on Oct. 29 last year and targeted an Internet service provider in East Asia in an attempt to bring its services offline. This writes BleepingComputer.

Cloudflare reports that the attack lasted 80 seconds but did not impact the target and generated no alerts because detection and mitigation were utterly autonomous. An earlier DDoS attack reported by Cloudflare in early October 2024 peaked at 3.8 Tbps, lasted 65 seconds and was the most significant volumetric attack up to that point.

Hyper-volumetric attacks on the rise

Hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks are becoming more common, a trend that became visible in the third quarter of 2024, according to Cloudflare. In the fourth quarter, attacks began to cross the 1 Tbps mark, with quarter-on-quarter growth of 1.885%.

Attacks exceeding 100 million packets per second (pps) also increased 175%, with 16% reaching more than 1 billion pps.

Hyper-volume HTTP DDoS attacks comprised only 3% of the total, while 63% of the remaining attacks remained small, reaching no more than 50,000 requests per second (rps). The statistics for network-level DDoS attacks (Layer 3/Layer 4) are similar: 93% did not exceed 500 Mbps, and 87% were limited to less than 50,000 pps.

Increasingly shorter attacks

Cloudflare warns that DDoS attacks are getting shorter, making it virtually impossible for people to respond, analyze traffic, and take action. About 72% of HTTP and 91% of network-layer DDoS attacks ended within 10 minutes. On the other hand, only 22% of HTTP and 2% of network-layer DDoS attacks lasted longer than an hour.

According to the Internet security firm, these short bursts of overwhelming traffic usually occur during peak usage, such as holidays and sell-out periods, to generate maximum impact.

Extortion following DDoS attacks

This forms the basis for extortion DDoS attacks, which saw a notable 78% quarter-on-quarter and 25% year-on-year increase, with peaks in the fourth quarter and Christmas.

Cloudflare reports that the most frequently attacked targets in the last quarter of 2024 were in China, the Philippines and Taiwan, followed by Hong Kong and Germany.

Cloudflare’s telemetry data shows that most targets were in the telecommunications, service provider and carrier, Internet, and marketing and advertising industries.

Tip: Founder of DDoS security company confesses DDoS attacks