Cloudflare Alert Details
Alert ID: CLOUDFLARE-DDOS-1498-7842 Alert Time: 2024-03-04 11:30:22 EST Severity: HIGH (85/100) Source: Cloudflare DDoS Protection Rule: “Layer 7 DDoS Attack Detected – HTTP Flood” MITRE ATT&CK: T1498.001 – Network Denial of Service: Direct Network Flood
Alert Details:
Detection: HTTP flood DDoS attack against company website
Target: www.company.com Time: 11:15-11:30 EST Attack Type: HTTP GET flood Peak Rate: 125,000 requests per second Total Requests: 112 million in 15 minutes
Attack Characteristics:
Source IPs: 47,892 unique IPs (botnet)
Geographic distribution: Worldwide
User-Agent: Random (mimicking browsers)
Request pattern: GET /index.php?page=random
HTTP headers: Vary, some with unusual values
Cloudflare Mitigation:
Action: BLOCKED (automatically)
Rule: “HTTP DDoS Attack Protection”
Mitigation Time: 11:16 EST (1 minute after attack start)
Requests Blocked: 100% of attack traffic
Detection Logic:
Traffic volume 100x normal baseline
Request rate anomaly detected
Pattern matches botnet HTTP flood
Cloudflare mitigated automatically
SOC Investigation Process
Step
Action
Tools Used
Findings
1. Alert Validation
Verify Cloudflare alert
Cloudflare Dashboard
Confirmed DDoS attack, automatically mitigated
2. Impact Assessment
Check website availability
Monitoring Tools
Website remained available (Cloudflare mitigation)
3. Attack Analysis
Review attack characteristics
Cloudflare Logs
Botnet HTTP flood, 125K RPS peak
4. Customer Communication
Notify internal stakeholders
Email, Teams
Informed of attack and mitigation
5. Post-Attack Tuning
Adjust WAF rules
Cloudflare
Enhanced rate limiting rules
6. Threat Intelligence
Report to FS-ISAC
Threat Intel Team
Shared attack indicators
Jira Incident Report
Ticket: SOC-2024-168 Summary: T1498 – Layer 7 DDoS Attack (125K RPS) Mitigated by Cloudflare Status: RESOLVED Resolution: MALICIOUS – Attack Mitigated, No Downtime Priority: P2 – MEDIUM Labels: T1498, ddos, network-denial-of-service, cloudflare, http-flood Components: Network-Security, DDoS-Protection
INCIDENT ANALYSIS REPORT
1. Initial Context:
Detection Source: Cloudflare DDoS Protection.
Alert: “Layer 7 DDoS Attack Detected – HTTP Flood”.
Target: www.company.com.
Attack Rate: 125,000 requests per second.
Total Requests: 112 million in 15 minutes.
Time: 2024-03-04 11:30 EST.
Technique: MITRE ATT&CK T1498.001 – Network Denial of Service: Direct Network Flood.
2. Technical Analysis:
Attack Characteristics:
Type: HTTP GET flood (Layer 7)
Source IPs: 47,892 unique IPs (botnet)
Countries: Top sources: China (18%), Brazil (12%), India (10%), US (8%)
User-Agent: Randomized (spoofing Chrome, Firefox, Safari)
Request Pattern: GET /index.php?page=[random] (random parameter)
Peak Rate: 125,000 RPS (500x normal)
Cloudflare Mitigation:
Detection Time: 11:16 EST (1 minute after attack start)
Mitigation Action: Challenge page, rate limiting
Requests Blocked: 100% of attack traffic
Legitimate Traffic: Allowed (0 impact)
Impact Assessment:
Website remained available throughout
No performance degradation
No data breach
3. Investigation Findings:
Timeline:
11:15 – Attack begins
11:16 – Cloudflare detects and mitigates
11:30 – Alert sent to SOC
11:32 – SOC investigates
11:35 – Stakeholders notified
Indicators of Compromise (IoCs):
Attack Pattern:
– HTTP GET flood
– Random page parameter
– Distributed botnet (47K+ IPs)
No permanent IoCs (attack only)
4. Containment Actions:
Immediate Actions:
Verified Cloudflare mitigation was effective.
Monitored for second wave (none).
Notified internal teams.
Post-Attack:
Analyzed attack patterns for future tuning.
Enhanced rate limiting rules.
Updated WAF to block similar patterns.
5. Root Cause Analysis:
Primary Cause: External attacker using botnet to overwhelm web servers.
Contributing Factors:
Public-facing website (always a target).
No DDoS protection would have caused outage.
6. Business Impact:
Operational Impact: None (Cloudflare mitigated).
Financial Impact: None.
Reputational Impact: None (no downtime).
7. Remediation & Prevention:
Completed Actions:
Attack mitigated automatically.
Post-attack analysis completed.
Technical Controls Enhanced:
Verified Cloudflare DDoS protection settings.
Enhanced rate limiting.
Updated WAF rules.
8. Conclusion:
A large-scale HTTP flood DDoS attack targeted the company website, peaking at 125,000 requests per second. Cloudflare’s DDoS protection automatically detected and mitigated the attack within one minute, resulting in zero downtime.
Closure Rationale: Attack mitigated; no impact; controls verified.
Analyst: [Your Name], SOC Analyst Date: 2024-03-04 12:30 EST