Breaking: Cloudflare Thwarts Largest DDoS Attack Ever at 5.6 Tbps

Breaking: Cloudflare Thwarts Largest DDoS Attack Ever at 5.6 Tbps

Record-Breaking DDoS Attack Signals New Era of Cyber Threats

A unprecedented distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack reached a staggering 5.6 terabits per second, marking the largest such incident in history. The attack, launched by a Mirai-based botnet controlling 13,000 devices, targeted an Eastern Asian internet service provider in October 2024.

Despite its magnitude, Cloudflare’s autonomous detection and mitigation systems successfully defended against the 80-second assault without any service disruption. This attack surpassed the previous record of 3.8 Tbps set earlier that month.

Key Trends in DDoS Attacks:

– Dramatic increase in hyper-volumetric attacks, with Q4 2024 showing a 1,885% quarter-over-quarter growth in attacks exceeding 1Tbps
– 175% rise in attacks surpassing 100 million packets per second
– Majority of attacks (72% HTTP and 91% network layer) lasted less than 10 minutes
– Ransom DDoS attacks increased 78% quarter-over-quarter

Geographic and Industry Impact:
– Most targeted regions: China, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Germany
– Primary targets: Telecommunications, service providers, internet sector, and marketing industries

The trend toward brief but intense “blitz” attacks highlights the critical need for automated, always-on DDoS protection, as human response times prove inadequate against these rapidly evolving threats.

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