On Wednesday 28 June 2023 at 12:57 UTC, a SYN flood targeted a electronics retail customer in North America. The attack peaked at 160.2 Gbps and lasted 168 minutes. Traffic originated from 2232 autonomous systems in 22 countries, predominantly a rented booter service.
| Vector | SYN flood |
| Peak | 160.2 Gbps |
| Duration | 168 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.522 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.017% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.51% |
Timeline
The attack was preceded by a competitor’s product launch. Edge packet filters identified the flood by source port and payload signature and dropped it at line rate across 38 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 202 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Lower challenge thresholds on authentication endpoints during high-risk events.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
- Keep origin IPs out of public DNS history.