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Attack Spotlight: Q1s Record-setting DDoS Attack

Overview

In Q1 2014, Prolexic successfully mitigated the largest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack campaign to ever cross its network

The attackers used a combination of Network Time Protocol (NTP) reflection and Domain Name Service (DNS) reflection as the main attack vectors

Variations of the POST flood attack were also used The attack exceeded 10 hours in duration and was

directed at a European Internet media company This campaign peaked at more than 200 Gbps and

53.5 Mpps

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DDos techniques involved

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PLXsert identified the latest NTP and DNS reflection attack tools, as well as popular DDoS toolkit known as Drive, in the attack

The NTP and DNS protocols are susceptible to abuse by malicious actors, producing highly amplified results

Drive, a DIRT Jumper variant, utilizes a traditional botnet architecture achieved through malware infection

Validated attack vectors

POST1 & POST2 floods, which target Layer 7 (application layer)

DNS reflection, which targets Layer 3 & Layer 4 (infrastructure layer)

NTP monlist reflection, which targets Layer 3 and Layer 4

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Validated attack vectors (cont)

DNS ANY request flood and NTP reflection attack signatures were detected during the campaign

An application layer attack (Layer 7) generated multiple HTTP (POST) requests with several different signatures, attempting to evade DDoS mitigation technologies

The POST flood Layer 7 attacks appeared to match those generated by the DIRT Jumper Drive malware

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Analysis of associated malware

The Drive variant associated with this campaign supports nine attack vectors: GET POST1 POST2 IP IP2 UDP request timeout thread

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Analysis of sourced traffic

The majority of DNS reflectors were from the United States, as well as Russia and Brazil

The principal sources of the application attacks were identified as Turkey, Iran and Argentina

PLXsert verifies the majority of sources from these countries match CPE device signatures

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Attack traffic at Prolexic scrubbing centers

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Q1 2014 Global Attack Report

Download the Q1 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report The Q1 2014 report covers:

Analysis of recent DDoS attack trends Breakdown of average Gbps/Mpps statistics Year-over-year and quarter-by-quarter analysis Types and frequency of application layer attacks Types and frequency of infrastructure attacks Trends in attack frequency, size and sources Where and when DDoSers launch attacks Case study and analysis

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About Prolexic

Prolexic Technologies, now part of Akamai, has successfully stopped DDoS attacks for more than a decade

Our global DDoS mitigation network and 24/7 security operations center (SOC) can stop even the largest attacks that exceed the capabilities of other DDoS mitigation service providers

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Attack Spotlight: Q1s Record-setting DDoS AttackOverviewDDos techniques involvedValidated attack vectorsValidated attack vectors (cont)Analysis of associated malwareAnalysis of sourced trafficAttack traffic at Prolexic scrubbing centersQ1 2014 Global Attack ReportAbout Prolexic