A botnet made up of only servers has been detected to be capable of DDoS attacks at up to 2Tbps.

One of the most powerful botnets ever observed has been discovered, which allows launching DDoS attacks up to 2Tbit/s.

According the StormWall specialists who claim to have made the discovery, the new botnet consists of 49,000 devices comprising only servers and no computers or mobile devices. The botnet seems to originate from Spain, and it can be purchased online, starting from US$2,500 for two days.

Unlike its predecessors, this powerful botnet can affect not only the victim but also the entire chain of its providers, and simultaneously cause problems with internet access for hundreds of thousands of users and online resources.

So far, the attacks carried out by the new botnet have been quite standard: it can launch attacks using the UDP, TCP, and HTTP protocols (at layer 7 of the OSI model) with browser emulation. Apparently, hackers have been using the new tool for about a month. Most of the detected DDoS attacks by this botnet had been directed at the gaming industry.

Due to the fact that the botnet has such a massive capacity, protection against it will be expensive, and only cloud DDoS protection services with sufficient filtering network capacity will be able to cope with it, and there can be no question of independent protection.

According to the firm, the previous most dangerous botnets in the history of DDoS attacks were Zeus in 2007, Mirai in 2016 and now FreakOut botnet attack on Linux devices at the beginning this year. It is suspected that the power of DDoS attacks will be increased due to the development of 5G networks. If a malicious operator commandeers a huge number of mobile devices running 1Gbps connectivity, the resultant DDoS attacks will basically be unstoppable, according to the firm’s blog.