On Distributed Denial of Service Current Defense Schemes

Seth Kotey,Eric Tchao,James Gadze

doi:10.3390/technologies7010019

Seth Kotey, Eric Tchao + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies7010019

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Abstract

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are a major threat to any network-based service provider. The ability of an attacker to harness the power of a lot of compromised devices to launch an attack makes it even more complex to handle. This complexity can increase even more when several attackers coordinate to launch an attack on one victim. Moreover, attackers these days do not need to be highly skilled to perpetrate an attack. Tools for orchestrating an attack can easily be found online and require little to no knowledge about attack scripts to initiate an attack. Studies have been done severally to develop defense mechanisms to detect and defend against DDoS attacks. As defense schemes are designed and developed, attackers are also on the move to evade these defense mechanisms and so there is a need for a continual study in developing defense mechanisms. This paper discusses the current DDoS defense mechanisms, their strengths and weaknesses.

Highlights

As of December 2017, it was estimated that the number of internet users was over 4 billion with a user growth of over 1000% within the past 18 years [1]
We present a taxonomy of Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the network layer and application layer
With the increase in the scale, sophistication, and volume of modern-day DDoS attacks, it is important that more research is conducted to come up with very robust defenses to combat attacks

Summary

Introduction

As of December 2017, it was estimated that the number of internet users was over 4 billion with a user growth of over 1000% within the past 18 years [1]. With the increase in dependability of the internet comes with it an important challenge: data availability. Distributed denial of service attacks are intentional attempts by malicious users to disrupt or degrade the quality of a network or service [2]. These attacks involve a number of compromised connected online devices, known as a botnet [3]. Spoofed source addresses to hide source addresses make it even more difficult. These attacks have been around for several years, but in recent years, the scale of attacks have increased drastically. We present current mechanisms for defending against

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