On Friday 22 July 2022 at 14:08 UTC, a UDP reflection (DNS) targeted a online casino customer in the Middle East. The attack peaked at 157.0 Gbps and lasted 45 minutes. Traffic originated from 1320 autonomous systems in 29 countries, predominantly misconfigured open reflectors.
| Vector | UDP reflection (DNS) |
| Peak | 157.0 Gbps |
| Duration | 45 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.569 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.069% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.21% |
Timeline
The attack was preceded by no stated motive. Edge packet filters identified the flood by source port and payload signature and dropped it at line rate across 29 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 82 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Keep origin IPs out of public DNS history.
- Add a dedicated rate limit for the targeted route.
- Lower challenge thresholds on authentication endpoints during high-risk events.
Interesting that most attacks are under ten minutes. Our experience is similar.
Machine-readable ranges are at /ips.json and via the API.
Could you share the dataset behind the percentages?
Would love a follow-up on how you handle HTTP/3 fingerprinting.
Clear and practical, thanks.
How do you avoid challenging uptime monitors and partners?