Quantifying the Spectrum of Denial-of-Service Attacks through Internet Backscatter

Norbert Blenn, Vincent Ghiëtte, Christian Doerr

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

28 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are a major threat currently observable in omputer networks and especially the Internet. In such an attack a malicious party tries to either break a service, running on a server, or exhaust the capacity or bandwidth of the victim to hinder customers to effectively use the service. Recent reports show that the total number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is steadily growing with “mega-attacks” peaking at hundreds of gigabit/s (Gbps).
In this paper, we will provide a quantification of DDoS attacks in size and duration beyond these outliers reported in the media. We find that these mega attacks do exist, but the bulk of attacks is in practice only a fraction of these frequently reported values. We further show that it is feasible to collect meaningful backscatter traces using surprisingly small telescopes, thereby enabling a broader audience to perform attack intelligence research.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationARES 2017
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 12th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
Place of PublicationNew York, NY
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages1-10
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-4503-5257-4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017
EventARES 2017: 12th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security - Reggio Calabria, Italy
Duration: 29 Aug 20171 Sept 2017
Conference number: 12

Conference

ConferenceARES 2017
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityReggio Calabria
Period29/08/171/09/17

Keywords

  • denial-of-service
  • backscatter
  • telescope
  • threat intelligence

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