On Tuesday 3 September 2024 at 11:07 UTC, a GRE flood targeted a online payments customer in the Nordics. The attack peaked at 205.1 Gbps and lasted 77 minutes. Traffic originated from 563 autonomous systems in 113 countries, predominantly a headless-browser farm.
| Vector | GRE flood |
| Peak | 205.1 Gbps |
| Duration | 77 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.165 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.055% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.10% |
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 31 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.