Cloudflare Reports DDoS Attack Peaking at 22.2 Tbps
Cloudflare has reported a new milestone in the escalating scale of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The company says it successfully mitigated an assault that peaked at 22.2 terabits per second (Tbps) and 10.6 billion packets per second (PPS) — making it the most powerful DDoS attack recorded to date.
This comes only three weeks after Cloudflare disclosed another massive incident, in which the company handled an attack peaking at 11.5 Tbps. At the time, that event was the largest DDoS ever reported.
Short but Record-Breaking
Security experts note that the new 22.2 Tbps attack lasted just 40 seconds. Despite its brevity, the scale was staggering: the volume of traffic was roughly equivalent to streaming one million 4K videos simultaneously. Meanwhile, the packet rate of 10.6 billion PPS equates to every person on Earth refreshing a webpage 1.3 times per second.
Limited Details from Cloudflare
Cloudflare has released few specifics about either of the record-breaking attacks. However, researchers from Qianxin Xlabs linked the earlier 11.5 Tbps attack to the AISURU botnet.
The AISURU Botnet
According to analysts, AISURU has infected more than 300,000 devices worldwide. A major spike in activity was observed in April 2025, following the compromise of a Totolink router update server.
The botnet is known to exploit vulnerabilities in:
- IP cameras
- DVRs and NVRs
- Realtek chipsets
- Routers manufactured by T-Mobile, Zyxel, D-Link, and Linksys
Broader Implications
While the 22.2 Tbps incident has not yet been directly tied to AISURU, the rapid succession of record-breaking DDoS events highlights the growing risk posed by large-scale IoT botnets. The combination of device vulnerabilities, widespread infection, and weaponized bandwidth continues to push the limits of internet infrastructure.
