On Sunday 1 December 2024 at 00:51 UTC, a UDP reflection (DNS) targeted a education platform customer in the UK. The attack peaked at 191.3 Gbps and lasted 24 minutes. Traffic originated from 2402 autonomous systems in 79 countries, predominantly residential proxy networks.
| Vector | UDP reflection (DNS) |
| Peak | 191.3 Gbps |
| Duration | 24 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.721 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.060% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.49% |
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 29 points of presence.
What the customer saw
Checkout conversion was unchanged compared with the same hour of the previous week.
Recommendations
- Lower challenge thresholds on authentication endpoints during high-risk events.
- Enable authenticated origin pulls.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.