4.2 Tbps of bad packets and a whole lot more: Cloudflare's Q3 DDoS report

Cloudflare’s Q3 2024 DDoS Threat Report highlights a 49% QoQ surge to nearly 6 million mitigated attacks, including over 200 hyper-volumetric events (>3 Tbps/2 Bpps) and a new 4.2 Tbps peak on Oct 21, 2024. Attacks were evenly split between HTTP and network layers, with SYN, DNS, UDP floods and SSDP amplification (up 4,000%) prominent; 72% of HTTP attacks were botnet-driven, frequently spoofing Chrome user agents, and 94% were over HTTPS. China was the most targeted country and Banking & Financial Services the most targeted industry, while Indonesia led as the top source, and networks such as Hetzner, Linode, and Vultr were major HTTP DDoS sources. Reports of ransom DDoS decreased 42% QoQ but rose 17% YoY, underscoring the need for proactive, automated DDoS defenses.