Cloudflare has successfully defended against the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack ever recorded, reaching an unprecedented 22.2 terabits per second (Tbps) and 10.6 billion packets per second.

## Breaking Previous Records

This massive cyber assault surpassed all previous attacks by a significant margin. Just three weeks earlier, Cloudflare had mitigated what was then considered the largest attack at 11.5 Tbps. The escalating frequency and intensity of these attacks highlight a growing cybersecurity threat landscape.

## Attack Details

The record-breaking attack lasted only 40 seconds but generated enormous traffic volumes:
– **Traffic equivalent**: Similar to streaming one million 4K videos simultaneously
– **Packet rate impact**: Roughly 1.3 web page refreshes per second from every person on Earth
– **Infrastructure strain**: The high packet volume particularly challenged firewalls, routers, and load balancers

## The AISURU Botnet Connection

Security researchers from XLab at Qi’anxin have linked recent large-scale DDoS attacks to the AISURU botnet, which has compromised over 300,000 devices globally. The botnet experienced rapid growth after infiltrating a Totolink router firmware update server in April 2025.

**Target devices include**:
– IP cameras and DVR/NVR systems
– Routers from major manufacturers (T-Mobile, Zyxel, D-Link, Linksys)
– Devices with Realtek chips

## Growing Threat Landscape

DDoS attacks work by overwhelming system or network resources, making online services slow or completely unavailable to legitimate users. The increasing frequency of record-breaking attacks demonstrates cybercriminals’ growing capabilities and the critical importance of robust cybersecurity defenses.

This latest incident underscores the evolving nature of cyber threats and the need for organizations to maintain advanced protection systems capable of handling massive-scale attacks.