A taxonomy of DDoS attack and DDoS defense mechanisms

TLDR

Distributed denial‑of‑service attacks are a rapidly expanding threat, with a vast and diverse array of attack and defense strategies that overwhelm practitioners. The study introduces two taxonomies to classify DDoS attacks and defenses, aiming to clarify the problem and solution landscape. The attack taxonomy emphasizes shared features and key challenges, while the defense taxonomy organizes solutions by design choices, revealing their strengths and weaknesses.

Abstract

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) is a rapidly growing problem. The multitude and variety of both the attacks and the defense approaches is overwhelming. This paper presents two taxonomies for classifying attacks and defenses, and thus provides researchers with a better understanding of the problem and the current solution space. The attack classification criteria was selected to highlight commonalities and important features of attack strategies, that define challenges and dictate the design of countermeasures. The defense taxonomy classifies the body of existing DDoS defenses based on their design decisions; it then shows how these decisions dictate the advantages and deficiencies of proposed solutions.