Record breaking DDoS attacks hit Google Cloud, AWS & Cloudflare, cybersecurity on high alert
Google and other top cloud companies faced their largest DDoS attacks ever. According to Google, a two minute attack surpassed Wikipedia's entire September 2023 traffic.
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Highlights
- Big names like CDN and AWS were also hit by massive DDoS attacks
- The exploited vulnerability, known as CVE-2023-44487, was used by the attackers
- DDoS attacks are basic but can cause real harm
In August, Google Cloud faced the largest-ever Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, reaching a peak of 398 million requests per second. Google, along with other major cloud players like Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services, reported record-breaking attacks.
Within two minutes, Google Cloud experienced more requests than Wikipedia did in all of September 2023. Cloudflare defended against a 201 million request per second (RPS) attack, while AWS stopped a 155 million RPS assault.
Fortunately, these tech giants' robust global load-balancing and DDoS mitigation systems ensured uninterrupted service for their customers.
The attack on Google Cloud, using an innovative "Rapid Reset" method, was 7½ times larger than any DDoS attack ever recorded. The "Rapid Reset" technique refers to a new approach employed in the attack. Sending lots of requests and canceling them quickly makes servers work hard, and it's cheap for attackers.
Google Cloud, AWS, and Cloudflare report largest DDoS attacks ever https://t.co/KbN3NC3mwn pic.twitter.com/CB3ObJM2dN
— Tony Burquez (@TonyBeeTweets) October 11, 2023
New ‘Rapid Reset’ attack
The 'Rapid Reset' technique is a new kind of cyberattack that targets systems using the HTTP/2 protocol, a more advanced version of the older HTTP 1.x.
It does this by overwhelming a system with many requests, followed immediately by 'resets.' This process makes the system work hard to process these requests, even if they are canceled.
If your website or services use HTTP/2, you could be a potential target for this attack.
DDoS major target
DDoS attacks have been ongoing since late August and have targeted major infrastructure providers. Top tech companies successfully defended using load balancing and DDoS mitigation, ensuring uninterrupted service.
They also collaborated, sharing insights and mitigation methods with industry peers, resulting in widely adopted patches and techniques.
How to defend DDoS attacks
Many companies lack the resources to handle such attacks. To defend against Rapid Reset attackers, you require robust network DDoS defense services like Amazon CloudFront, AWS Shield, Google Cloud Armor, or CloudFlare Magic Transit.
Attackers exploited a weakness called CVE-2023-44487. To protect against similar attacks, HTTP service providers should secure their servers and install CVE-2023-44487 patches, which are coming soon. Expect more Rapid Reset attacks until then.
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