Yandex was hit by the largest DDoS attack in the history of the Internet.

Yandex was hit by the largest DDoS attack in the history of the Internet.

“Our specialists have indeed managed to repel a record attack of more than 20 million RPS — the largest attack known in the history of the Internet,” according to the the company’s statement.

According to Yandex, the incident is one of many similar ones. The attacks have been ongoing for several weeks and target many companies around the world; their scale is unprecedented, and the source is a new botnet about which little is known so far.

Following a joint investigation with Qrator Labs, Yandex found that the botnet named Mēris can overwhelm virtually any network infrastructure, including some high-reliability networks designed to withstand such a load. It spreads via compromised Mikrotik devices.

The exact vulnerabilities leading to Mikrotik equipment being hijacked remain unknown.

The company asserts that the attack did not impact service operation and that user data was unaffected.

The botnet’s activity is growing in scale, according to experts:

“We suspect it could grow through brute-force (password guessing), although this option does not seem to be the main one. The whole situation points more to the vulnerability either having been kept secret until the start of the full-scale campaign, or having been sold on the black market.”

In 2020, Russia ranked fourth place in the world by the total losses from hacker attacks.

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