On Wednesday 14 June 2023 at 01:56 UTC, a memcached amplification targeted a crypto exchange customer in the Middle East. The attack peaked at 285.6 Gbps and lasted 58 minutes. Traffic originated from 2160 autonomous systems in 113 countries, predominantly mobile carrier ranges.
| Vector | memcached amplification |
| Peak | 285.6 Gbps |
| Duration | 58 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.333 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.021% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.29% |
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 28 points of presence.
What the customer saw
The customer’s status page stayed green throughout; they learned about the attack from our notification.
Recommendations
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
- Keep origin IPs out of public DNS history.
- Enable log streaming to your SIEM for faster correlation.