On Friday 29 March 2024 at 00:18 UTC, a CLDAP reflection targeted a online casino customer in the Middle East. The attack peaked at 362.3 Gbps and lasted 80 minutes. Traffic originated from 2067 autonomous systems in 30 countries, predominantly a rented booter service.
| Vector | CLDAP reflection |
| Peak | 362.3 Gbps |
| Duration | 80 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.731 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.031% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.45% |
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 24 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 135 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Add a dedicated rate limit for the targeted route.
- Keep origin IPs out of public DNS history.
- Enable authenticated origin pulls.
How do you avoid challenging uptime monitors and partners?