LONDON — Voxility mitigated multiple 1Tbps+ denial of service (DDoS) attacks on customer infrastructure early this month. Its fully integrated anti-DDoS solution was able to protect the network infrastructure from depreciation in service or being taken offline.  

The attack waves peaked at 1,035 gigabits per second (Gbps) and 1,044 Gbps on Sept. 3-4, accompanied subsequently by lower intensity attacks of 798 Gbps and 854 Gbps over the weekend. These were made up of a volumetric User Datagram Protocal UDP flood, comprising abnormally large UDP packets, DNS amplification, and UDP packets without payload, in an attempt to overwhelm infrastructure ports with IP traffic.

There were more than 600 different originating source IPs per DDoS event, with an average attack duration registered at around 15 minutes. The profile of the customer target was identified as a hosting provider with global operations.

“The motivations behind these waves of DDoS attacks are uncertain at this point,” said Maria Sirbu, vice president of corporate communications at Voxility. “Whether they are caused by extortion attempts or simply seeking to disrupt the hosting provider’s operations, very large volumetric DDoS attacks are occurring, often across networks. In August alone, Voxility saw more than 30 attack waves that surpassed 500 Gbps in volume intensity, while at least six to seven events out of these where higher than 700 Gbps. This is in contrast to what has been reported by website security companies in 2020 that have seen a more frequent but lower-intensity attack landscape for DDoS.

“Successful anti-DDoS is a continuous process and large DDoS attacks have to be proactively planned for, especially if you are a network operator,” she continued. “These attacks have only highlighted how critical it is to have a scrubbing network behind your anti-DDoS setup, no matter how you decided to approach it.”