Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Telegram messaging app cops 200Gbps DDoS

'Someone from East Asia is pissed' say admins, but our cyborgs are fighting back

Popular messaging platform Telegram has been hit with a 200Gbps distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

The Tsunami TCP SYN flood kicked off on Friday and hurt users in Asia, Australia, and Oceania, knocking out the service for some five percent of the company's 60 million active users it has gained in 18 months.

It is a new form of DDoS attack discovered October by Radware security folk who say it is different from regular SYN floods in that it transmits large 100 byte packet sizes about double the regular 40 to 60 byte size.

That Radware says defeats many defense algorithms and quickly consumes bandwidth making even a modest attack clock some four to five gigabits per second.

"The garbage traffic came from about a hundred thousand infected servers, most noticeably, in LeaseWeb B.V., Hetzner Online AG, PlusServer AG, NFOrce Entertainment BV, Amazon and Comcast networks," Telegram says.

"That said, the attack was distributed evenly across thousands of hosts and none contributed more than five percent of the total volume … by now we know that the attack is being coordinated from East Asia.

"Attacks on the scale of the one we‘re facing today have become possible only recently and it’s the first time we‘ve met anything like this."

The company says it did not want to discuss its mitigation measures in the event that it could give pointers to attackers unknown.

"Our sysadmin cyborgs are working on this 24 hours a day."

The attack follows a bizarre smaller DDoS that followed a move by the company to introduce free custom stickers over the service. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like