On Monday 17 February 2025 at 06:07 UTC, a SYN flood targeted a news publisher customer in the Middle East. The attack peaked at 96.1 Gbps and lasted 120 minutes. Traffic originated from 84 autonomous systems in 36 countries, predominantly a rented booter service.
| Vector | SYN flood |
| Peak | 96.1 Gbps |
| Duration | 120 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.360 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.033% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.16% |
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 34 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 158 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Keep origin IPs out of public DNS history.
- Enable log streaming to your SIEM for faster correlation.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.