This is the most powerful botnet ever seen TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. This is the most powerful botnet ever seen By Sead Fadilpašić published 15 July 2022 Mantis, a small but powerful botnet, is quickly making a name for itself (Image credit: Shutterstock) Audio player loading… Web security experts Cloudflare have recently spotted a new botnet which it claims is probably the most powerful ever seen. Dubbed Mantis, the firm is claiming it evolved from a previously-known botnet - Meris. There are a few things that make Mantis exceptional, according to the researchers. First - it has fewer bots in its network, compared to its counterparts - around 5,000, but it is capable of launching excruciatingly powerful attacks. The biggest Distributed Denial of Service (opens in new tab) (DDoS) attack on record is 26 million generated requests per second (rps), which Cloudflare says it successfully mitigated. To make things even more impressive - the requests were not done via HTTP, but rather HTTPS - a more expensive type of attacks, given that this type of attack needs extra computing power to establish a secure TLS connection. Hijacking servers and VMs "That's an average of 5,200 HTTPS rps per bot," explained Cloudflare product manager Omer Yoachimik. "Generating 26 million HTTP requests is hard enough to do without the extra overhead of establishing a secure connection, but Mantis did it over HTTPS." Mantis is able to do this as it doesn't hijack low-power devices, such as DVRs, or cameras, but rather powerful endpoints (opens in new tab) - servers, or virtual machines. The botnet is also capable of attacking at scale - in the first month of Cloudflare keeping an eye on Mantis, it managed to launch more than 3,000 HTTP DDoS attacks against its customers.Read more> DDOS attacks: how to prevent and protect your business against them (opens in new tab) > Battle.net hit by huge DDoS attack (opens in new tab) > Manage identities like a pro with these best ID management tools (opens in new tab) Most of the time, the operators go for internet and telecommunications companies (36%), media and publishing firms (15%), and gaming and finance organizations (12%). The victims are usually located in the United States (20%), although Russian-based firms are also a major target (15%), followed by those in Turkey, France, Poland, Ukraine, the UK, Canada, and China. Distributed Denial of Service attacks are often used as a distraction, while threat actors conduct more devastating attacks, such as ransomware, or data exfiltration.Check out our list of the best firewalls (opens in new tab) right now Via: The Register (opens in new tab) Sead Fadilpašić Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he's written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He's also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications. See more Computing news Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to theTechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. MOST POPULARMOST SHARED1The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me2Stop saying Mario doesn't have an accent in The Super Mario Bros. Movie3Google Pixel Tablet is what Apple should've done ages ago4RTX 4090 too expensive? Nvidia resurrects another old favorite5More than one million credit card details leaked online1The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me2iPhone 15 tipped to come with an upgraded 5G chip3If this feature succeeds for Modern Warfare 2, Microsoft can't ignore it4Apple October launches: the new devices we might see this month5The Rings of Power episode 8 trailer feels like one big Sauron misdirect Technology Magazines (opens in new tab)● (opens in new tab)The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviewsFrom$12.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)