Google mitigated the largest DDoS attack to date, peaking above 398 million rps

Google has recently witnessed an exponential rise in the size of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, with the latest one reaching 398 million requests per second. This attack employed a novel HTTP/2 "Rapid Reset" technique based on stream multiplexing, impacting multiple Internet infrastructure companies. The attack targeted Google services and infrastructure, as well as their customers, highlighting the growing threat of DDoS attacks. Google collaborated with industry partners to develop mitigations and share intelligence about the attack methodology. The attack is tracked as CVE-2023-44487 and affects servers and proxies that support the HTTP/2 protocol. Organizations using HTTP/2-based services are advised to apply vendor patches or verify their systems' vulnerability. Defending against massive DDoS attacks requires significant infrastructure investments, which Google Cloud customers can leverage by utilizing Google's global network and DDoS protection capabilities. Google Cloud's Application Load Balancer and Cloud Armor provide proactive protection against DDoS attacks, including those exploiting vulnerabilities like CVE-2023-44487. To further enhance protection, organizations can deploy Cloud Armor custom security policies with rate limiting and AI-powered Adaptive Protection.