On Sunday 23 August 2026 at 15:53 UTC, a ACK flood targeted a electronics retail customer in Western Europe. The attack peaked at 289.8 Gbps and lasted 28 minutes. Traffic originated from 1665 autonomous systems in 15 countries, predominantly residential proxy networks.
| Vector | ACK flood |
| Peak | 289.8 Gbps |
| Duration | 28 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.249 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.076% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.17% |
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
The customer’s status page stayed green throughout; they learned about the attack from our notification.
Recommendations
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.
- Add a dedicated rate limit for the targeted route.
- Enable authenticated origin pulls.