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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Cloudflare reported a 2.5-terabit-per-second (Tbps) DDoS attack against the Minecraft server Wynncraft in Q3 2022. Cloudflare called it the largest attack it had seen “from the bitrate perspective” at that time. The company said the Mirai botnet variant used both UDP and TCP floods, and that Cloudflare filtered the traffic without Wynncraft noticing. That was a historical, metric-specific record—not a claim that the incident remains Cloudflare’s largest attack today.
What happened to Wynncraft?
Cloudflare’s Q3 2022 DDoS report described several attacks exceeding 1 Tbps. It identified the largest of that quarter as a 2.5 Tbps attack against Wynncraft, a public Minecraft server. Cloudflare attributed the traffic to a Mirai botnet variant and described it as multi-vector, combining UDP and TCP floods.
Cloudflare said its systems automatically detected and mitigated the attack. Its report said Wynncraft “didn’t even notice the attack, since Cloudflare filtered it out for them.” That is Cloudflare’s account of its customer’s experience; the available reporting does not include an independent customer statement or third-party measurement.
Was it really Cloudflare’s largest DDoS attack?
Only with the original qualification. Cloudflare wrote that the event was its largest attack “from the bitrate perspective” when the Q3 2022 report was published. Bitrate measures the volume of traffic transferred each second, expressed here in terabits per second.
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The unqualified present-tense claim is now outdated. Cloudflare’s current educational material identifies a 29.7 Tbps attack in Q3 2025 as the largest DDoS attack ever reported. The Wynncraft event remains notable as Cloudflare’s reported 2022 bitrate record, not as its all-time record today.
How big is 2.5 Tbps?
A 2.5 Tbps peak means approximately 2.5 trillion bits of network traffic per second at the attack’s maximum. It describes traffic volume, not the number of packets, application requests, or the attack’s duration. Cloudflare’s Wynncraft account does not state how long this particular attack lasted.
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| Measure | What it counts | Relevant Cloudflare example |
|---|---|---|
| Bitrate | Bits transferred per second | 2.5 Tbps Wynncraft attack in Q3 2022 |
| Packet rate | Network packets per second | Not stated for the Wynncraft incident |
| Request rate | Application requests per second | 201 million requests per second in Cloudflare’s Q3 2023 HTTP DDoS reporting |
| Duration | How long the traffic continued | Not stated for the Wynncraft incident |
These measurements cannot be ranked against one another as though they were the same statistic. For example, Cloudflare separately reported a 1.9 Tbps network-layer attack in Q4 2023 and a 201-million-request-per-second HTTP attack in Q3 2023. The latter is a request-rate record, not a larger version of the Wynncraft bitrate event.
Did the Minecraft server go offline?
Cloudflare said no: its filtering prevented the attack from being noticed by Wynncraft. The statement establishes what Cloudflare reported about the mitigation outcome, but it does not independently verify uptime, player experience, or the attack’s duration. No attacker identity or motive was established in the cited incident account.
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What role did Mirai play?
Mirai is a botnet family associated with compromised Internet of Things devices such as routers and cameras. Cloudflare’s retrospective describes Mirai’s use in DDoS attacks, including earlier attacks against game-related services, and explains that variants and operators evolved over time.
A 2017 Cloudflare Research bibliographic record for a USENIX Security study reports that the original Mirai campaign peaked at about 600,000 infected devices. That historical infection count is context about the botnet family, not a measurement of the Wynncraft attack and not proof that the same operators or infrastructure were involved.
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How did Cloudflare mitigate the attack?
The Q3 2022 report says Cloudflare automatically detected and mitigated multiple attacks above 1 Tbps and filtered the Wynncraft traffic. It does not publish a complete step-by-step configuration for this incident, so the defensible conclusion is limited to automated detection and filtering by Cloudflare’s service. Server operators should not assume that every Minecraft host, network, or unprotected home connection could absorb comparable traffic.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the incident demonstrates for Minecraft operators
- Separate network and application threats. UDP and TCP floods target network capacity and protocol handling; an HTTP request flood is measured differently and may require different controls.
- Use a mitigation layer before the origin. The reported outcome depended on Cloudflare filtering the traffic rather than the game server handling all 2.5 Tbps itself.
- Check the metric before comparing headlines. Ask whether a claim is measured in bitrate, packets per second, requests per second, duration, or another dimension.
- Keep attribution precise. “Wynncraft did not notice” is Cloudflare’s reported customer outcome, not an independently audited guarantee.
Bottom line on the “largest” claim
The accurate formulation is: Cloudflare reported a 2.5 Tbps Mirai-variant attack against Wynncraft as its largest observed DDoS by bitrate in Q3 2022. Cloudflare said automated filtering kept the incident from being noticed by Wynncraft. Later Cloudflare reporting, including a 29.7 Tbps event in Q3 2025, means the attack is no longer the company’s overall largest reported DDoS.
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