Amazon was hit by the largest DDoS attack ever recorded for over three days in what experts are calling a “warning we should not ignore”.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), on which thousands of retailers rely on to operate online, managed to defend itself from the largest ‘distributed denial of service (DDoS)’ attack in history in February.
DDoS attacks use multiple compromised computers or internet connected devices to flood a specific server with web traffic, overwhelming the source so that no one can access it, akin to a traffic jam clogging up a motorway.
According to Amazon’s Q1 report its server was hit by a DDoS attack with a peak traffic volume of 2.3Tbps (Terabits per second), dramatically above the previous largest recorded attack of 1.7Tbps.
READ MORE: Amazon Web Services to be investigated by FTC
Red Goat Cyber Security’s Lisa Forte told the BBC that this was like “comparing a moped to a super-car” adding that this was “huge news for people in the industry”.
“But as always with cyber-threats, we are in an arms race against attackers every day. This will definitely be an alarming revelation to many and could be a warning that we should not ignore.”
Amazon managed to defend against the unprecedented attack with its AWS Shield, designed to protect customers of it cloud service from DDoS attacks, application vulnerabilities and bad bots.
Click here to sign up to Charged‘s free daily email newsletter
