On Thursday 29 August 2024 at 07:55 UTC, a ACK flood targeted a online payments customer in Iberia. The attack peaked at 252.1 Gbps and lasted 120 minutes. Traffic originated from 1460 autonomous systems in 15 countries, predominantly residential proxy networks.
| Vector | ACK flood |
| Peak | 252.1 Gbps |
| Duration | 120 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.016 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.033% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.05% |
Timeline
The attack was preceded by a hacktivist channel announcing the target. Edge packet filters identified the flood by source port and payload signature and dropped it at line rate across 35 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 30 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Enable authenticated origin pulls.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
- Add a dedicated rate limit for the targeted route.