Bug ID 2138181: Low thresholds for tcp-ack-ts vector caused outage after BIG-IP upgrade to 17.1.3

Last Modified: Dec 19, 2025

Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP AFM, Install/Upgrade(all modules)

Known Affected Versions:
17.1.3

Opened: Oct 22, 2025

Severity: 3-Major

Symptoms

A number of DoS vectors were added in version 17.1.0 and are set to Mitigate by default. The list of vectors that were added is described in K41305885: BIG-IP AFM DoS vectors https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K41305885 These include - TCP ACK (TS) - TCP ACK Flood - TCP Flags Uncommon Additionally, a DoS vector behavior has changed: - Bad TCP Flags Malformed

Impact

These low thresholds trigger frequent DoS attack detections, leading to disruptions in service.

Conditions

Old threshold values (Detection EPS Threshold: 200, Mitigation EPS Threshold: 100) are still being used, which are too low compared to the new defaults.

Workaround

Change the threshold to the new defaults or any reasonable values accordingly. For example: #tmsh modify security dos device-config dos-device-config dos-device-vector { tcp-ack-ts {default-internal-rate-limit 300000 detection-threshold-pps 200000}}

Fix Information

None

Behavior Change

Guides & references

K10134038: F5 Bug Tracker Filter Names and Tips