Cloudflare Blocks 18.2 Million DDoS Attacks in Q3 2026 Amid Shifting Attack Patterns
Cloudflare blocked 18.2 million network-layer DDoS attacks during the third quarter of 2026, according to its quarterly report published on 29 October. The figure represents a 208% rise compared with the same period in 2025 and equates to approximately 8,200 attacks per hour.
The profile of attacks changed significantly even as their volume grew. Cloudflare noted that 96% of incidents lasted less than ten minutes and 98% remained below 1 Gbps, producing roughly one attack every 0.44 seconds. During the same quarter the company also filtered 14.4 trillion HTTP-layer requests and 272.6 PB of network-layer traffic.
Large volumetric attacks moved in the opposite direction. Assaults exceeding 1 Tbps fell from 805 in the second quarter to 251 in the third, a decline of nearly 69%. Cloudflare attributes the reduction to law-enforcement operations conducted earlier in 2026 against four IoT botnets.
The shift places greater emphasis on detection speed rather than raw capacity. Short bursts below 1 Gbps and lasting less than ten minutes often fall beneath thresholds used by traditional volumetric mitigation systems, potentially overwhelming under-provisioned services before volume-based alerts trigger.
Attack vectors also realigned. CLDAP reflection dropped 99.5% quarter-over-quarter to just 0.05% of total attacks after surging 580% in the first half of the year. DNS amplification increased 215% and now accounts for 3.43% of incidents, while UDP floods rose 122% from 14.06% to 31.31%.
Geographically, the United States returned to the top position among targeted countries, followed by China and Indonesia. Canada climbed from 16th to 6th place, and Israel rose seven spots to 10th. The media, production and publishing sector remained the most heavily targeted industry, although its share declined to roughly one-quarter of the previous quarter’s level.
Legacy infrastructure continued to drive substantial traffic. Mirai variants generated 57.23 PB in August alone, representing 46.5% of network-layer bytes for the quarter. Newer families such as Dysphoria and Evooo1Bot appeared in place of the dismantled botnets.
Cloudflare recommends that operators keep mitigation always-on rather than on-demand and calibrate detection thresholds to identify bursts lasting less than one minute.
Related articles
Freshko: Open-Source Rust Tool Offers Local File and URL Scanning Without Data Upload
A developer has released Freshko, a compact 400x640 pixel desktop application built in Rust that performs quick local checks on files, folders, and URLs without sending data to external services. The tool uses YARA-X rules for file scanning, follows up to eight redirects while querying Cloudflare's filtering DNS, and scores processes for potential cryptocurrency miners based on names, arguments, and launch paths. It explicitly avoids acting as a full antivirus solution, instead providing transparent results that list any skipped items or incomplete checks. Freshko runs on macOS and Windows, keeps all scan results in memory only, and disables system proxies during URL checks to prevent DNS rebinding attacks. The project includes performance benchmarks on Apple Silicon and addresses common pitfalls such as high CPU usage false positives and incomplete disk scans. Unlike VirusTotal or Cloudflare URL Scanner, Freshko performs all file analysis locally and never makes scan reports public.
Yoba Campaign Uses Signed ChatGPT and Claude Binaries for DLL Sideloading and XMRig Deployment
Researchers at Check Point Research have uncovered the Yoba malware campaign that distributes fake desktop clients for ChatGPT and Claude through GitHub repositories. The attackers bundle legitimate signed executables from OpenAI and Anthropic with a malicious DLL that gets loaded via classic sideloading. Once executed, the loader establishes persistence using the Windows Task Scheduler and retrieves additional payloads through Telegram, DNS over HTTPS, and the Catbox file hosting service. The campaign ultimately deploys the XMRig cryptominer, which pauses mining activity when user interaction is detected to avoid detection. No compromise of OpenAI or Anthropic infrastructure was found; the attackers simply repurpose the companies' signed binaries and reputation. The operation primarily targets home users and small-to-medium businesses with Windows systems.
uCreator Spyware Infiltrates Modified Telegram, WeChat and GCash Builds on Android
Security researcher Ovi has published a detailed analysis of uCreator, also known as YingGai, a commercial Android spyware platform designed for surveillance and remote app control. The malware intercepts messages, verification codes and account data directly inside legitimate applications without requiring root privileges. Infection vectors include tampered Telegram, WeChat and GCash APKs distributed through unofficial sources, as well as the Onion Box container that launches the target app inside a controlled environment. Once active, uCreator hooks into the host process, reads Telegram’s local message database through client interfaces, captures two-factor authentication passwords and hides its own session from the user. The operation is supported by cloud-based command panels and exposed GitLab repositories that revealed server-side code and development history. Compatibility problems have been noted on Android 17, and the total number of victims remains unknown.
Researchers Deploy Cowrie Honeypot Disguised as NVIDIA H100 Server to Study SSH Botnet Tactics
A cybersecurity team set up a realistic Cowrie honeypot on a fake server equipped with four NVIDIA H100 GPUs, 128 AMD EPYC cores, and terabytes of storage to observe what SSH brute-force bots actually do after gaining access. The trap used a custom StickyAuth module that allowed entry only after several failed attempts and locked in the successful credential pair per IP address. Over the first 12.5 hours the system recorded 1,846 connections from 126 unique IPs, 175 successful logins, and 1,524 commands executed, with the majority of activity traced to a single botnet linked to the Outlaw group. The attackers deployed SSH keys signed mdrfckr, changed the root password, killed competing processes, installed cron jobs, and downloaded a mining archive called dota3 containing an IRC backdoor and its own SSH scanner. The researchers also identified three realism issues in the base Cowrie setup—limited grep flags, outdated filesystem paths in Debian 12, and inconsistent hostname reporting—and patched them to keep sophisticated bots engaged longer. An auxiliary LLM service later summarized each session in Telegram for easier analysis.