On Sunday 6 August 2023 at 17:39 UTC, a memcached amplification targeted a ticketing customer in Iberia. The attack peaked at 25.0 Gbps and lasted 186 minutes. Traffic originated from 3001 autonomous systems in 109 countries, predominantly a rented booter service.
| Vector | memcached amplification |
| Peak | 25.0 Gbps |
| Duration | 186 min |
| Time to mitigation | 0.933 s |
| Attack traffic reaching origin | 0.044% |
| Legitimate traffic challenged | 0.55% |
Timeline
The attack was preceded by a publicly announced sales event. Edge packet filters identified the flood by source port and payload signature and dropped it at line rate across 27 points of presence.
What the customer saw
A brief increase in p99 latency of 49 ms during the first minute, then normal service.
Recommendations
- Lower challenge thresholds on authentication endpoints during high-risk events.
- Enable log streaming to your SIEM for faster correlation.
- Review allow-listed partner ranges quarterly.