On Thursday 9 January 2025 at 15:42 UTC, a Slowloris targeted a news publisher customer in North America. The attack peaked at 969.0 million requests per second and lasted 39 minutes. Traffic originated from 2287 autonomous systems in 94 countries, predominantly mobile carrier ranges.
| Vector | Slowloris |
| Peak | 969.0 million requests per second |
| Duration | 39 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.709 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.034% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.71% |
Timeline
The attack was preceded by a ransom note demanding payment in Monero. Request rates on the targeted routes exceeded their hourly baseline by a factor of 446 within 38 seconds. The risk score of participating clients crossed the challenge threshold automatically and proof-of-work difficulty rose with origin load.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 47 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Enable log streaming to your SIEM for faster correlation.
- Add a dedicated rate limit for the targeted route.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.