Threat Bulletin 1018: memcached amplification against a retail banking platform in the Benelux

On Wednesday 22 January 2025 at 05:49 UTC, a memcached amplification targeted a retail banking customer in the Benelux. The attack peaked at 353.7 Gbps and lasted 153 minutes. Traffic originated from 1228 autonomous systems in 34 countries, predominantly hijacked home routers.

Vector memcached amplification
Peak 353.7 Gbps
Duration 153 min
Time to mitigation 0.309 s
Attack traffic reaching origin 0.018%
Legitimate traffic challenged 0.27%

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 14 points of presence.

What the customer saw

A brief increase in p99 latency of 171 ms during the first minute, then normal service.

Recommendations

  • Keep origin IPs out of public DNS history.
  • Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
  • Enable authenticated origin pulls.

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