On Tuesday 5 November 2024 at 04:26 UTC, a memcached amplification targeted a fashion retail customer in Iberia. The attack peaked at 350.1 Gbps and lasted 77 minutes. Traffic originated from 2485 autonomous systems in 13 countries, predominantly a rented booter service.
| Vector | memcached amplification |
| Peak | 350.1 Gbps |
| Duration | 77 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.676 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.020% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.46% |
Timeline
The attack was preceded by a ransom note demanding payment in Monero. Edge packet filters identified the flood by source port and payload signature and dropped it at line rate across 24 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 57 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Add a dedicated rate limit for the targeted route.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
- Enable log streaming to your SIEM for faster correlation.