Distributed Denial-of-Service Characterization

Abstract

Distributed denial of service (DoS) attacks on cyber-resources are complex problems that are difficult to completely define, characterize, and mitigate. We recognize the process-nature of DoS attacks and view them from multiple perspectives. Identification of opportunities for mitigation and further research may result from this attempt to characterize the DoS problem space. We examine DoS attacks from the point of view of 1) a high-level that establishes common terminology and a framework for discussing the DoS process, 2) layers of the communication stack, from attack origination to the victim of the attack, 3) specific network and computer elements, and 4) attack manifestations. We also examine DoS issues associated with wireless communications. Using this collection of views, one begins to see the DoS problem in a holistic way that may lead to improved understanding, new mitigation strategies, and fruitful research.

Knowledge Required for Detecting and Defending against Denial of Service Attacks

“…DoS attacks are classified based on the services that an adversary makes unavailable to legitimate users. A few examples include preventing legitimate network traffic, preventing access to services for a group or individuals [32].…”

“…Important:{1, 3,5,6,8,19,[23][24][25][26][27][28]32,33,35,36,[38][39][40][41]7,9,11,14,17,20,22,29,30,34,37> Unimportant: (4,12,13,15,16,18,19,21,3) Unimportant: (7,8,9,11,13,22,27,28,30,31,35,36,37, 40,41) Table 4. SVM detection efficacy for dos using different features obtained from svdf ranking…”

A framework for countering denial of service attacks

“…Efforts on how to define and characterize denial of service attacks through a collection of different perspectives such as bandwidth, process information, system infomation, user information and 1P address is being proposed by several researchers [2,3,9]. Using the defmed characteristics a few signature-based and anomaly based detection techniques are proposed [5,12,13,14,].…”