An unprecedented volumetric DDoS attack was mitigated by internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare, it has disclosed. Attackers used a Mirai botnet to send over 17.2 million requests per second in an effort to take down the website of one of Cloudflare’s financial clients. In all, over 330 million http requests were made, resulting in an attack three times larger than any previous.
Botnets are formed when malware infects improperly secured devices, ranging from IoT appliances like thermostats & doorbells to phones & laptops. Thankfully, most malware can be stopped and networks secured using a VPN-enabled FlashRouter. Cloudflare said that over 20,000 devices were involved in the botnet attack.
