(Credit: ValeryBrozhinsky via Getty Images)
Over 13,000 infected devices were harnessed for the largest DDoS attack on record, which targeted an internet service provider in East Asia.
According to web infrastructure provider Cloudflare, the Oct. 29 attack generated 5.6Tbps in traffic against the ISP, with the goal of overwhelming its servers and forcing them offline. However, Cloudflare detected and automatically thwarted the attack, requiring no "human intervention," the company said in a Tuesday report.
(Credit: Cloudflare)
(Credit: Cloudflare)Still, the 5.6Tbps incident underscores how DDoS attacks are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity. In September, Cloudflare reported a 3.8Tbps DDoS, or what was then the new record for the largest "volumetric" attack. Weeks later, the company detected a more powerful 4.2Tbps strike targeting a US service provider. In both instances, Cloudflare fended off the assaults.
The company has sourced the attacks to various botnets, or armies of infected computers. In its newest report, Cloudflare traced the Oct. 29 DDoS to a botnet using a variant of Mirai malware to infect IoT devices. The resulting attack only lasted 80 seconds, but it could have been enough to take down internet services without Cloudflare’s DDoS protection.
In 2024, Cloudflare blocked “around 21.3 million DDoS attacks, representing a 53% increase compared with 2023.” The number of DDoS attacks exceeding 1Tbps also grew 1,885% in Q4 from Q3.
“This rise in attack size renders capacity-limited cloud DDoS protection services or on-premise DDoS appliances obsolete,” the company said. In response, Cloudflare notes that its own network capacity has grown to 321Tbps, up from 35Tbps back in 2020, enabling it to provide robust DDoS protection services for its own customers.