
Saturday marked a new turn in the 13-year-old cyber war of the Russian KGB against the Kavkaz Center.
After a day of some rest on July 13, the SYN flood attack rate rose to 8.5 million packets per second at night on Saturday, July 14.
The KC mirror server was subjected to a DDoS attack with 2 million packets
On Saturday afternoon, the level of attacks increased drastically to 18 million requests per second. This level was maintained for about 30 minutes.
Then there was a sharp increase, and the criminals hit the KC server by a SYN flood attack of 45.69 million requests per second. At the same time, they continued to attack the mirror of the Kavkaz Center at 2 million packets per second.
Thus, the total level of the simultaneous DDoS attacks on the servers of the KC reached 47.69 million packets per second. The rate rose to 25 gigabits per second.
These are huge numbers.
It is to be mentioned in this context that we found no attack of such level in the DDoS history since the discovery of the Internet IP4 vulnerability. This is certainly the first such precedent in the history of modern cyber warfare.
The tactics used by attackers on Saturday are interesting enough.
They apply the tactics of "collapse", i.e. they attacked suddenly, drastically and powerfully, with all available forces to disrupt the provider itself and its network infrastructure. First, 18 million pps for half an hour and then a sudden change to up to 45.69 million pps. The unprecedented wave of the SYN flood lasted for 25 minutes.
Perhaps, by doing so the hackers hoped that the provider, blocked by the DDoS attack, would refuses to host the Kavkaz Center.
No less curious is the fact that world media outlets, including the Caucasian and the Russian ones, completely ignore the cyber battle between the KGB and the Kavkaz Center. But actually, what is happening now will soon affect many of them, both in the West and in Russia.
The KGB regime in Russia now masters its cyber warfare strategy and tactics which could be later used against their opponents and rivals elsewhere.
Kavkaz Center