Cloudflare’s Q3 2026 DDoS report is out, and the numbers keep climbing.
The numbers
- 18.2 million network-layer (L3) attacks, up from 13.2 million in Q2. That’s about 8,226 an hour, or one every 0.44 seconds.
- 14.4 trillion HTTP DDoS requests mitigated.
- Short, small attacks (under 10 minutes and under 1 Gbps) jumped 208%, mostly from booter and stresser services.
- Attacks over 1 Tbps fell 69% (805 to 251) after law enforcement went after AISURU, KimWolf and other botnets, but new ones like Dysphoria are showing up.
- DNS amplification rose 215%. CLDAP floods dropped.
My take
For small sites and home labs, the short bursts are the ones that hurt. They’re over before anyone gets paged. Close your open resolvers so you’re not part of someone’s amplification, rate-limit at the edge, and don’t expose services that don’t need to be public.
God Bless, and Happy hacking!
