Google has said it successfully prevented one of the largest DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks on record, with an unprecedented peak of over 398 million requests per second (RPS). In making the announcement, Google warned of a flaw that could be exploited to make the attack successful if attempted again.
In a new blog post, the tech giant reported that it thwarted plans to prevent a DDoS attack that was 7.5 times larger than the largest-ever recorded DDoS attack this past August. "For a sense of scale, this two-minute attack generated more requests than the total number of article views reported by Wikipedia during the entire month of September 2023," Google explained.
The problem is a vulnerability in the HTTP/2 protocol designed to let internet connections open up concurrent data streams, Google said. Unfortunately, it is ripe for abuse as, unlike the recent Sony hack, a DDoS attack can cause a website or online service to go offline by flooding it with a high volume of requests.
"Unfortunately, the features that make HTTP/2 more efficient for legitimate clients can also be used to make DDoS attacks more efficient," Google wrote. Fortunately, Google confirmed it collaborated with industry peers, notifying them of the vulnerability and finding a solution to prevent this flaw from being used again.
DDoS attacks, like any cybercrime, have many negative results that can occur if successful. A few of these include losing access to online services, whether to pay to your local bank, access your favorite social media account, or play your favorite game online.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
