Understanding the July 19 Network Outage: A Large-Scale Carpet-Bomb DDoS Attack

On Sunday, July 19, at approximately 12:30 p.m. Pacific, Zeta Broadband experienced one of the most significant cyberattacks our network has faced. We want to provide our customers with a transparent explanation of what happened, why it was different from a typical internet outage, and what we're doing moving forward.

What Happened?

Zeta Broadband was the target of a large-scale Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Specifically, the attack utilized a technique commonly referred to as a "carpet-bomb" DDoS attack.

Unlike a traditional DDoS attack that targets a single server or IP address, a carpet-bomb attack spreads malicious traffic across a broad range of IP addresses simultaneously. By attacking many destinations at once, the attacker attempts to overwhelm the internet connections serving an entire network rather than a single service.

In our case, the attack generated enough traffic to saturate all of our upstream internet connections, preventing legitimate customer traffic from reaching our network.

Why Traditional DDoS Protection Didn't Stop It

Many customers have asked why DDoS protection wasn't able to prevent the outage.

Traditional mitigation works by detecting malicious traffic and redirecting it to specialized filtering systems before it reaches the intended destination.

However, this attack was different.

The sheer volume of malicious traffic saturated the upstream carrier links themselves before the traffic could be redirected for filtering. In other words, the "roads" leading to our network became congested before the traffic ever reached the "security checkpoint."

This style of attack has become increasingly common across the internet and has recently impacted internet providers, hosting companies, cloud platforms, and other critical infrastructure throughout the United States.

Our Response

As soon as the attack began, our engineering and operations teams immediately responded.

Throughout the incident we:

• Worked continuously with our upstream internet providers to identify and mitigate the attack.

• Coordinated traffic engineering and routing changes as mitigation strategies evolved.

• Monitored the health of every portion of our network while restoration efforts were underway.

• Provided customer updates through our social media channels and our outage voicemail system whenever new information became available.

While communication during a widespread internet outage is always challenging, we recognize that some customers expected more frequent updates. We are evaluating additional communication methods to improve how we share information during future network events.

Service Restoration

Network service was restored at approximately 12:20 a.m. Pacific on July 20.

Since restoration, our engineering team has continued monitoring network performance around the clock to ensure stability and verify that all services have returned to normal operation.

Continuing Improvements

Cyber threats continue to evolve, and so must the defenses protecting modern internet infrastructure.

Although no mitigation solution can guarantee immunity against every attack, particularly one of this magnitude, we are actively working with our upstream providers and industry partners to strengthen our resilience against future events. This includes evaluating additional upstream mitigation capabilities, routing improvements, and expanded redundancy designed to reduce the impact of similar attacks.

Protecting our customers and maintaining reliable connectivity remains our highest priority.

Still Experiencing Issues?

If your service has not fully recovered or you're experiencing lingering connectivity issues, please contact our Support Team so we can investigate your individual connection.

Due to the unusually high volume of calls, emails, and support requests generated during this event, we kindly ask for your patience while our team responds to every customer inquiry.

Thank You

We understand that many of our customers rely on Zeta Broadband for work, school, healthcare, entertainment, and staying connected with family. We know this outage caused real disruption, and for that we sincerely apologize.

We are incredibly grateful for the trust you place in us every day. Thank you for standing with us throughout this event and for your continued support.

With gratitude,

The Zeta Broadband Team