Threat Bulletin 0481: GRE flood against a crypto exchange platform in North America

On Monday 26 December 2022 at 06:03 UTC, a GRE flood targeted a crypto exchange customer in North America. The attack peaked at 320.2 Gbps and lasted 124 minutes. Traffic originated from 3338 autonomous systems in 48 countries, predominantly a rented booter service.

Vector GRE flood
Peak 320.2 Gbps
Duration 124 min
Time to mitigation 0.793 s
Attack traffic reaching origin 0.010%
Legitimate traffic challenged 0.25%

Timeline

The attack was preceded by a hacktivist channel announcing the target. Edge packet filters identified the flood by source port and payload signature and dropped it at line rate across 12 points of presence.

What the customer saw

The customer’s status page stayed green throughout; they learned about the attack from our notification.

Recommendations

  • Enable authenticated origin pulls.
  • Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
  • Lower challenge thresholds on authentication endpoints during high-risk events.

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