On Monday 25 November 2024 at 04:20 UTC, a UDP reflection (NTP) targeted a sports betting customer in Iberia. The attack peaked at 159.4 Gbps and lasted 172 minutes. Traffic originated from 249 autonomous systems in 112 countries, predominantly misconfigured open reflectors.
| Vector | UDP reflection (NTP) |
| Peak | 159.4 Gbps |
| Duration | 172 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.187 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.052% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.25% |
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 18 points of presence.
What the customer saw
Checkout conversion was unchanged compared with the same hour of the previous week.
Recommendations
- Enable log streaming to your SIEM for faster correlation.
- Lower challenge thresholds on authentication endpoints during high-risk events.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.