Article on Denial of Service Attacks

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Denial-of-service attack
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"DoS" redirects here. For other uses, see DOS (disambiguation).

DDoS Stacheldraht Attack diagram.

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to
make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets
of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet
site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically
target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root
nameservers. The term is generally used with regards to computer networks, but is not limited to this field, for
example, it is also used in reference to CPU resource management.[1] There are two general forms of DoS attacks:
those that crash services and those that flood services.[2]
One common method of attack involves saturating the target machine with external communications requests, such
that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general
terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources so
that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users
and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.
Denial-of-service attacks are considered violations of the IAB's Internet proper use policy, and also violate the
acceptable use policies of virtually all Internet service providers. They also commonly constitute violations of the
laws of individual nations.[3]
Contents
[hide]
 1 Symptoms and Manifestations
 2 Methods of attack
o 2.1 ICMP flood
o 2.2 Teardrop attacks
o 2.3 Peer-to-peer attacks
o 2.4 Permanent denial-of-service attacks
o 2.5 Application level floods
o 2.6 Nuke
o 2.7 Distributed attack
o 2.8 Reflected attack
o 2.9 Degradation-of-service attacks
o 2.10 Unintentional denial of service
o 2.11 Denial-of-Service Level II
o 2.12 Blind denial of service

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 3 Incidents
 4 Performing DoS-attacks
 5 Prevention and response
o 5.1 Firewalls
o 5.2 Switches
o 5.3 Routers
o 5.4 Application front end hardware
o 5.5 IPS based prevention
o 5.6 Prevention via proactive testing
o 5.7 Blackholing/Sinkholing
o 5.8 Clean pipes
 6 Side effects of DoS attacks
o 6.1 Backscatter
 7 Denial-of-service attacks and the law
 8 See also
 9 Notes and references
 10 External links
[edit] Symptoms and Manifestations
The United States Computer Emergency Response Team defines symptoms of denial-of-service attacks to include:
 Unusually slow network performance (opening files or accessing web sites)
 Unavailability of a particular web site
 Inability to access any web site
 Dramatic increase in the number of spam emails received—(this type of DoS attack is considered an e-mail
bomb)[4]
Denial-of-service attacks can also lead to problems in the network 'branches' around the actual computer being
attacked. For example, the bandwidth of a router between the Internet and a LAN may be consumed by an attack,
compromising not only the intended computer, but also the entire network.
If the attack is conducted on a sufficiently large scale, entire geographical regions of Internet connectivity can be
compromised without the attacker's knowledge or intent by incorrectly configured or flimsy network infrastructure
equipment.
[edit] Methods of attack
A "denial-of-service" attack is characterized by an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users of a
service from using that service. Attacks can be directed at any network device, including attacks on routing devices
and web, electronic mail, or Domain Name System servers.
A DoS attack can be perpetrated in a number of ways. The five basic types of attack are:
1. Consumption of computational resources, such as bandwidth, disk space, or processor time
2. Disruption of configuration information, such as routing information.
3. Disruption of state information, such as unsolicited resetting of TCP sessions.
4. Disruption of physical network components.
5. Obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer
communicate adequately.
A DoS attack may include execution of malware intended to:
 Max out the processor's usage, preventing any work from occurring.
 Trigger errors in the microcode of the machine.
 Trigger errors in the sequencing of instructions, so as to force the computer into an unstable state or lock-up.
 Exploit errors in the operating system, causing resource starvation and/or thrashing, i.e. to use up all available
facilities so no real work can be accomplished.
 Crash the operating system itself.
[edit] ICMP flood
See also: Smurf attack, Ping flood, Ping of death, and SYN flood
A smurf attack is one particular variant of a flooding DoS attack on the public Internet. It relies on misconfigured
network devices that allow packets to be sent to all computer hosts on a particular network via the broadcast address
of the network, rather than a specific machine. The network then serves as a smurf amplifier. In such an attack, the
perpetrators will send large numbers of IP packets with the source address faked to appear to be the address of the
victim. The network's bandwidth is quickly used up, preventing legitimate packets from getting through to their
destination.[5] To combat Denial of Service attacks on the Internet, services like the Smurf Amplifier Registry have
given network service providers the ability to identify misconfigured networks and to take appropriate action such as
filtering.
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Ping flood is based on sending the victim an overwhelming number of ping packets, usually using the "ping"
command from unix-like hosts (the -t flag on Windows systems has a far less malignant function). It is very simple to
launch, the primary requirement being access to greater bandwidth than the victim.
SYN flood sends a flood of TCP/SYN packets, often with a forged sender address. Each of these packets is handled
like a connection request, causing the server to spawn a half-open connection, by sending back a TCP/SYN-ACK
packet, and waiting for a packet in response from the sender address. However, because the sender address is forged,
the response never comes. These half-open connections saturate the number of available connections the server is
able to make, keeping it from responding to legitimate requests until after the attack ends.
[edit] Teardrop attacks
A Teardrop attack involves sending mangled IP fragments with overlapping, over-sized payloads to the target
machine. This can crash various operating systems due to a bug in their TCP/IP fragmentation re-assembly code.[6]
Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, as well as versions of Linux prior to versions
2.0.32 and 2.1.63 are vulnerable to this attack.
Around September 2009, a vulnerability in Vista was referred to as a "teardrop attack", but the attack targeted SMB2
which is a higher layer than the TCP packets that teardrop used.[7][8]
[edit] Peer-to-peer attacks
Attackers have found a way to exploit a number of bugs in peer-to-peer servers to initiate DDoS attacks. The most
aggressive of these peer-to-peer-DDoS attacks exploits DC++. Peer-to-peer attacks are different from regular botnet-
based attacks. With peer-to-peer there is no botnet and the attacker does not have to communicate with the clients it
subverts. Instead, the attacker acts as a 'puppet master,' instructing clients of large peer-to-peer file sharing hubs to
disconnect from their peer-to-peer network and to connect to the victim's website instead. As a result, several
thousand computers may aggressively try to connect to a target website. While a typical web server can handle a few
hundred connections/sec before performance begins to degrade, most web servers fail almost instantly under five or
six thousand connections/sec. With a moderately big peer-to-peer attack a site could potentially be hit with up to
750,000 connections in a short order. The targeted web server will be plugged up by the incoming connections. While
peer-to-peer attacks are easy to identify with signatures, the large number of IP addresses that need to be blocked
(often over 250,000 during the course of a big attack) means that this type of attack can overwhelm mitigation
defenses. Even if a mitigation device can keep blocking IP addresses, there are other problems to consider. For
instance, there is a brief moment where the connection is opened on the server side before the signature itself comes
through. Only once the connection is opened to the server can the identifying signature be sent and detected, and the
connection torn down. Even tearing down connections takes server resources and can harm the server.
This method of attack can be prevented by specifying in the p2p protocol which ports are allowed or not. If port 80 is
not allowed, the possibilities for attack on websites can be very limited.
[edit] Permanent denial-of-service attacks
A permanent denial-of-service (PDoS), also known loosely as phlashing,[9] is an attack that damages a system so
badly that it requires replacement or reinstallation of hardware. [10] Unlike the distributed denial-of-service attack, a
PDoS attack exploits security flaws which allow remote administration on the management interfaces of the victim's
hardware, such as routers, printers, or other networking hardware. The attacker uses these vulnerabilities to replace a
device's firmware with a modified, corrupt, or defective firmware image—a process which when done legitimately is
known as flashing. This therefore "bricks" the device, rendering it unusable for its original purpose until it can be
repaired or replaced.
The PDoS is a pure hardware targeted attack which can be much faster and requires fewer resources than using a
botnet in a DDoS attack. Because of these features, and the potential and high probability of security exploits on
Network Enabled Embedded Devices (NEEDs), this technique has come to the attention of numerous hacker
communities. PhlashDance is a tool created by Rich Smith[11] (an employee of Hewlett-Packard's Systems Security
Lab) used to detect and demonstrate PDoS vulnerabilities at the 2008 EUSecWest Applied Security Conference in
London.[11]
[edit] Application level floods
On IRC, IRC floods are a common electronic warfare weapon.
Various DoS-causing exploits such as buffer overflow can cause server-running software to get confused and fill the
disk space or consume all available memory or CPU time.
Other kinds of DoS rely primarily on brute force, flooding the target with an overwhelming flux of packets,
oversaturating its connection bandwidth or depleting the target's system resources. Bandwidth-saturating floods rely
on the attacker having higher bandwidth available than the victim; a common way of achieving this today is via
Distributed Denial of Service, employing a botnet. Other floods may use specific packet types or connection requests
to saturate finite resources by, for example, occupying the maximum number of open connections or filling the
victim's disk space with logs.
A "banana attack" is another particular type of DoS. It involves redirecting outgoing messages from the client back
onto the client, preventing outside access, as well as flooding the client with the sent packets.
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An attacker with access to a victim's computer may slow it until it is unusable or crash it by using a fork bomb.
[edit] Nuke
A Nuke is an old denial-of-service attack against computer networks consisting of fragmented or otherwise invalid
ICMP packets sent to the target, achieved by using a modified ping utility to repeatedly send this corrupt data, thus
slowing down the affected computer until it comes to a complete stop.
A specific example of a nuke attack that gained some prominence is the WinNuke, which exploited the vulnerability
in the NetBIOS handler in Windows 95. A string of out-of-band data was sent to TCP port 139 of the victim's
machine, causing it to lock up and display a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).
[edit] Distributed attack
A distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a
targeted system, usually one or more web servers. These systems are compromised by attackers using a variety of
methods.
Malware can carry DDoS attack mechanisms; one of the better-known examples of this was MyDoom. Its DoS
mechanism was triggered on a specific date and time. This type of DDoS involved hardcoding the target IP address
prior to release of the malware and no further interaction was necessary to launch the attack.
A system may also be compromised with a trojan, allowing the attacker to download a zombie agent (or the trojan
may contain one). Attackers can also break into systems using automated tools that exploit flaws in programs that
listen for connections from remote hosts. This scenario primarily concerns systems acting as servers on the web.
Stacheldraht is a classic example of a DDoS tool. It utilizes a layered structure where the attacker uses a client
program to connect to handlers, which are compromised systems that issue commands to the zombie agents, which in
turn facilitate the DDoS attack. Agents are compromised via the handlers by the attacker, using automated routines to
exploit vulnerabilities in programs that accept remote connections running on the targeted remote hosts. Each handler
can control up to a thousand agents.[12]
These collections of systems compromisers are known as botnets. DDoS tools like stacheldraht still use classic DoS
attack methods centered on IP spoofing and amplification like smurf attacks and fraggle attacks (these are also known
as bandwidth consumption attacks). SYN floods (also known as resource starvation attacks) may also be used. Newer
tools can use DNS servers for DoS purposes. See next section.
Simple attacks such as SYN floods may appear with a wide range of source IP addresses, giving the appearance of a
well distributed DDoS. These flood attacks do not require completion of the TCP three way handshake and attempt to
exhaust the destination SYN queue or the server bandwidth. Because the source IP addresses can be trivially spoofed,
an attack could come from a limited set of sources, or may even originate from a single host. Stack enhancements
such as syn cookies may be effective mitigation against SYN queue flooding, however complete bandwidth
exhaustion may require involvement
Unlike MyDoom's DDoS mechanism, botnets can be turned against any IP address. Script kiddies use them to deny
the availability of well known websites to legitimate users. [3] More sophisticated attackers use DDoS tools for the
purposes of extortion — even against their business rivals.[13]
It is important to note the difference between a DDoS and DoS attack. If an attacker mounts an attack from a single
host it would be classified as a DoS attack. In fact, any attack against availability would be classed as a Denial of
Service attack. On the other hand, if an attacker uses a thousand systems to simultaneously launch smurf attacks
against a remote host, this would be classified as a DDoS attack.
The major advantages to an attacker of using a distributed denial-of-service attack are that multiple machines can
generate more attack traffic than one machine, multiple attack machines are harder to turn off than one attack
machine, and that the behavior of each attack machine can be stealthier, making it harder to track down and shut
down. These attacker advantages cause challenges for defense mechanisms. For example, merely purchasing more
incoming bandwidth than the current volume of the attack might not help, because the attacker might be able to
simply add more attack machines.
[edit] Reflected attack
A distributed reflected denial of service attack (DRDoS) involves sending forged requests of some type to a very
large number of computers that will reply to the requests. Using Internet protocol spoofing, the source address is set
to that of the targeted victim, which means all the replies will go to (and flood) the target.
ICMP Echo Request attacks (Smurf Attack) can be considered one form of reflected attack, as the flooding host(s)
send Echo Requests to the broadcast addresses of mis-configured networks, thereby enticing many hosts to send Echo
Reply packets to the victim. Some early DDoS programs implemented a distributed form of this attack.
Many services can be exploited to act as reflectors, some harder to block than others. [14] DNS amplification attacks
involve a new mechanism that increased the amplification effect, using a much larger list of DNS servers than seen
earlier.[15]
[edit] Degradation-of-service attacks
"Pulsing" zombies are compromised computers that are directed to launch intermittent and short-lived floodings of
victim websites with the intent of merely slowing it rather than crashing it. This type of attack, referred to as
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"degradation-of-service" rather than "denial-of-service", can be more difficult to detect than regular zombie invasions
and can disrupt and hamper connection to websites for prolonged periods of time, potentially causing more damage
than concentrated floods.[16][17] Exposure of degradation-of-service attacks is complicated further by the matter of
discerning whether the attacks really are attacks or just healthy and likely desired increases in website traffic. [18]
[edit] Unintentional denial of service
Aka VIPDoS
This describes a situation where a website ends up denied, not due to a deliberate attack by a single individual or
group of individuals, but simply due to a sudden enormous spike in popularity. This can happen when an extremely
popular website posts a prominent link to a second, less well-prepared site, for example, as part of a news story. The
result is that a significant proportion of the primary site's regular users — potentially hundreds of thousands of people
— click that link in the space of a few hours, having the same effect on the target website as a DDoS attack.
An example of this occurred when Michael Jackson died in 2009. Websites such as Google and Twitter slowed down
or even crashed. Many sites' servers thought the requests were from a virus or spyware trying to cause a Denial of
Service attack, warning users that their queries looked like "automated requests from a computer virus or spyware
application"[citation needed].
News sites and link sites — sites whose primary function is to provide links to interesting content elsewhere on the
Internet — are most likely to cause this phenomenon. The canonical example is the Slashdot effect. Sites such as
Digg, the Drudge Report, Fark, Something Awful, and the webcomic Penny Arcade have their own corresponding
"effects", known as "the Digg effect", being "drudged", "farking", "goonrushing" and "wanging"; respectively.
Routers have also been known to create unintentional DoS attacks, as both D-Link and Netgear routers have created
NTP vandalism by flooding NTP servers without respecting the restrictions of client types or geographical
limitations.
Similar unintentional denials of service can also occur via other media, e.g. when a URL is mentioned on television.
If a server is being indexed by Google or another search engine during peak periods of activity, or does not have a lot
of available bandwidth while being indexed, it can also experience the effects of a DoS attack.
Legal action has been taken in at least one such case. In 2006, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation
sued YouTube: massive numbers of would-be youtube.com users accidentally typed the tube company's URL,
utube.com. As a result, the tube company ended up having to spend large amounts of money on upgrading their
bandwidth.[19]
[edit] Denial-of-Service Level II
The goal of DoS L2 (possibly DDoS) attack is to cause a launching of a defense mechanism which blocks the
network segment from which the attack originated. In case of distributed attack or IP header modification (that
depends on the kind of security behavior) it will fully block the attacked network from Internet, but without system
crash.
[edit] Blind denial of service
In a blind denial of service attack, the attacker has a significant advantage. The attacker must be able to receive traffic
from the victim, then the attacker must either subvert the routing fabric or use the attacker's own IP address. Either
provides an opportunity for the victim to track the attacker and/or filter out his traffic. With a blind attack the attacker
uses one or more forged IP addresses, making it extremely difficult for the victim to filter out those packets. The TCP
SYN flood attack is an example of a blind attack.[20]
[edit] Incidents
 The first major attack involving DNS servers as reflectors occurred in January 2001. The target was
Register.com.[21] This attack, which forged requests for the MX records of AOL.com (to amplify the attack)
lasted about a week before it could be traced back to all attacking hosts and shut off. It used a list of tens of
thousands of DNS records that were a year old at the time of the attack.
 In February, 2001, the Irish Government's Department of Finance server was hit by a denial of service attack
carried out as part of a student campaign from NUI Maynooth. The Department officially complained to the
University authorities and a number of students were disciplined.[citation needed]
 In July 2002, the Honeynet Project Reverse Challenge was issued.[22] The binary that was analyzed turned out
to be yet another DDoS agent, which implemented several DNS related attacks, including an optimized form
of a reflection attack.
 On two occasions to date, attackers have performed DNS Backbone DDoS Attacks on the DNS root servers.
Since these machines are intended to provide service to all Internet users, these two denial of service attacks
might be classified as attempts to take down the entire Internet, though it is unclear what the attackers' true
motivations were. The first occurred in October 2002 and disrupted service at 9 of the 13 root servers. The
second occurred in February 2007 and caused disruptions at two of the root servers.[23]
 In February 2007, more than 10,000 online game servers in games such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein,
Halo, Counter-Strike and many others were attacked by the hacker group RUS. The DDoS attack was made
from more than a thousand computer units located in the republics of the former Soviet Union, mostly from
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Russia, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Minor attacks are still continuing to be made today.[citation needed]
 In the weeks leading up to the five-day 2008 South Ossetia war, a DDoS attack directed at Georgian
government sites containing the message: "win+love+in+Rusia" effectively overloaded and shut down
multiple Georgian servers. Websites targeted included the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikhail
Saakashvili, rendered inoperable for 24 hours, and the National Bank of Georgia. While heavy suspicion was
placed on Russia for orchestrating the attack through a proxy, the St. Petersburg-based criminal gang known
as the Russian Business Network, or R.B.N, the Russian government denied the allegations, stating that it
was possible that individuals in Russia or elsewhere had taken it upon themselves to start the attacks. [24]
 During the 2009 Iranian election protests, foreign activists seeking to help the opposition engaged in DDoS
attacks against Iran's government. The official website of the Iranian government (ahmedinejad.ir) was
rendered inaccessible on several occasions.[25] Critics claimed that the DDoS attacks also cut off internet
access for protesters inside Iran; activists countered that, while this may have been true, the attacks still
hindered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government enough to aid the opposition.
 On June 25, 2009, the day Michael Jackson died, the spike in searches related to Michael Jackson was so big
that Google News initially mistook it for an automated attack. As a result, for about 25 minutes, when some
people searched Google News they saw a "We're sorry" page before finding the articles they were looking
for.[26]
 June 2009 the P2P site The Pirate Bay was rendered inaccessible due to a DDoS attack. This was most likely
provoked by the recent sellout to Global Gaming Factory X AB, which was seen as a "take the money and
run" solution to the website's legal issues.[27] In the end, due to the buyers' financial troubles, the site was not
sold.
 Multiple waves of July 2009 cyber attacks targeted a number of major websites in South Korea and the
United States. The attacker used botnet and file update through internet is known to assist its spread. As it
turns out, a computer trojan was coded to scan for existing MyDoom bots. MyDoom was a worm in 2004,
and in July around 20,000-50,000 were present. MyDoom has a backdoor, which the DDoS bot could exploit.
Since then, the DDoS bot removed itself, and completely formatted the hard drives. Most of the bots
originated from China, and North Korea.
 On August 6, 2009 several social networking sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal, and Google
blogging pages were hit by DDoS attacks, apparently aimed at Georgian blogger "Cyxymu". Although
Google came through with only minor set-backs, these attacks left Twitter crippled for hours and Facebook
did eventually restore service although some users still experienced trouble. Twitter's Site latency has
continued to improve, however some web requests continue to fail.[28][29][30]
 In July and August, 2010, the Irish Central Applications Office server was hit by a denial of service attack on
four separate occasions, causing difficulties for thousands of Second Level students who are required to use
the CAO to apply for University and College places. The attack is currently subject to a Garda investigation.
[31]

[edit] Performing DoS-attacks

A wide array of programs are used to launch DoS-attacks. Most of these programs are completely focused on
performing DoS-attacks, while others are also true Packet injectors, thus able to perform other tasks as well.
Some examples of such tools are hping, JAVA socket programming, and httping but these are not the only programs
capable of such attacks. Such tools are intended for benign use, but they can also be utilized in launching attacks on
victim networks. In addition to these tools, there exist a vast amount of underground tools used by attackers. [32]
[edit] Prevention and response
[edit] Firewalls
Firewalls have simple rules such as to allow or deny protocols, ports or IP addresses. Some DoS attacks are too
complex for today's firewalls, e.g. if there is an attack on port 80 (web service), firewalls cannot prevent that attack
because they cannot distinguish good traffic from DoS attack traffic. Additionally, firewalls are too deep in the
network hierarchy. Routers may be affected even before the firewall gets the traffic. Nonetheless, firewalls can
effectively prevent users from launching simple flooding type attacks from machines behind the firewall.
Some stateful firewalls like OpenBSD's pF, can act as a proxy for connections, the handshake is validated (with the
client) instead of simply forwarding the packet to the destination. It is available for other BSDs as well. In that
context, it is called "synproxy".[33]
[edit] Switches
Most switches have some rate-limiting and ACL capability. Some switches provide automatic and/or system-wide
rate limiting, traffic shaping, delayed binding (TCP splicing), deep packet inspection and Bogon filtering (bogus IP
filtering) to detect and remediate denial of service attacks through automatic rate filtering and WAN Link failover and
balancing.[citation needed]
These schemes will work as long as the DoS attacks are something that can be prevented by using them. For example
SYN flood can be prevented using delayed binding or TCP splicing. Similarly content based DoS can be prevented
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using deep packet inspection. Attacks originating from dark addresses or going to dark addresses can be prevented
using Bogon filtering. Automatic rate filtering can work as long as you have set rate-thresholds correctly and
granularly. Wan-link failover will work as long as both links have DoS/DDoS prevention mechanism. [citation needed]
[edit] Routers
Similar to switches, routers have some rate-limiting and ACL capability. They, too, are manually set. Most routers
can be easily overwhelmed under DoS attack. If you add rules to take flow statistics out of the router during the DoS
attacks, they further slow down and complicate the matter. Cisco IOS has features that prevent flooding, i.e. example
settings.[34]
[edit] Application front end hardware
Application front end hardware is intelligent hardware placed on the network before traffic reaches the servers. It can
be used on networks in conjunction with routers and switches. Application front end hardware analyzes data packets
as they enter the system, and then identifies them as priority, regular, or dangerous. There are more than 25
bandwidth management vendors. Hardware acceleration is key to bandwidth management. Look for granularity of
bandwidth management, hardware acceleration, and automation while selecting an appliance. [citation needed]
[edit] IPS based prevention
Intrusion-prevention systems (IPS) are effective if the attacks have signatures associated with them. However, the
trend among the attacks is to have legitimate content but bad intent. Intrusion-prevention systems which work on
content recognition cannot block behavior-based DoS attacks.[citation needed]
An ASIC based IPS can detect and block denial of service attacks because they have the processing power and the
granularity to analyze the attacks and act like a circuit breaker in an automated way.[citation needed]
A rate-based IPS (RBIPS) must analyze traffic granularly and continuously monitor the traffic pattern and determine
if there is traffic anomaly. It must let the legitimate traffic flow while blocking the DoS attack traffic. [citation needed]
[edit] Prevention via proactive testing
Test platforms such as Mu Dynamics' Service Analyzer are available to perform simulated denial-of-service attacks
that can be used to evaluate defensive mechanisms such IPS, RBIPS, as well as the popular denial-of-service
mitigation products from Arbor Networks. An example of proactive testing of denial-of-service throttling capabilities
in a switch was performed in 2008: The Juniper EX 4200 switch with integrated denial-of-service throttling was
tested by Network Test and the resulting review was published in Network World.
[edit] Blackholing/Sinkholing
With blackholing, all the traffic to the attacked DNS or IP address is sent to a "black hole" (null interface, non-
existent server, ...). To be more efficient and avoid affecting your network connectivity, it can be managed by the ISP.
[35]

Sinkholing routes to a valid IP address which analyzes traffic and reject bad ones. Sinkholing is not efficient for most
severe attacks.
[edit] Clean pipes
All traffic is passed through a "cleaning center" via a proxy, which separates "bad" traffic (DDoS and also other
common internet attacks) and only sends good traffic beyond to the server. The provider needs central connectivity to
the Internet to manage this kind of service.[36]
Prolexic and Verisign are examples of providers of this service.[37][38]
[edit] Side effects of DoS attacks
[edit] Backscatter
In computer network security, backscatter is a side-effect of a spoofed denial of service (DoS) attack. In this kind of
attack, the attacker spoofs (or forges) the source address in IP packets sent to the victim. In general, the victim
machine can not distinguish between the spoofed packets and legitimate packets, so the victim responds to the
spoofed packets as it normally would. These response packets are known as backscatter.
If the attacker is spoofing source addresses randomly, the backscatter response packets from the victim will be sent
back to random destinations. This effect can be used by network telescopes as indirect evidence of such attacks.
The term "backscatter analysis" refers to observing backscatter packets arriving at a statistically significant portion of
the IP address space to determine characteristics of DoS attacks and victims.
An educational animation describing such backscatter can be found on the animations page maintained by the
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis.
[edit] Denial-of-service attacks and the law
In the Police and Justice Act 2006, the United Kingdom specifically outlawed denial-of-service attacks and set a
maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.[39]
In the US, they can be a serious federal crime under the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996
with penalties that include years of imprisonment, and many countries have similar laws. [citation needed]
[edit] See also
 Billion laughs
 Black fax
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 Cybercrime
 Dosnet
 Industrial espionage
 Intrusion-detection system
 Network intrusion detection system
 Regular expression Denial of Service - ReDoS
 Wireless signal jammer
[edit] Notes and references
1. ^ Yuval, Fledel. Uri, Kanonov. Yuval, Elovici. Shlomi, Dolev. Chanan,. "Google Android: A Comprehensive
Security Assessment". IEEE Security & Privacy (IEEE) (in press). doi:10.1109/MSP.2010.2. ISSN 1540-
7993.
2. ^ Erikson, Jon (in english) "HACKING the art of exploitation" (2nd edition ed.) San Francisco: NoStarch
Press p. 251 ISBN 1-59327-144-1
3. ^ a b Phillip Boyle (2000). "SANS Institute - Intrusion Detection FAQ: Distributed Denial of Service Attack
Tools: n/a". SANS Institute. http://www.sans.org/resources/idfaq/trinoo.php. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
4. ^ Mindi McDowell (2007). "Cyber Security Tip ST04-015". United States Computer Emergency Readiness
Team. http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-015.html. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
5. ^ "Types of DDoS Attacks". 2001. http://anml.iu.edu/ddos/types.html. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
6. ^ "CERT Advisory CA-1997-28 IP Denial-of-Service Attacks". CERT. 1998.
http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1997-28.html. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
7. ^ http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/windows-7-vista-exposed-to-teardrop-attack/4222
8. ^ http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/975497.mspx
9. ^ Leyden, John (2008-05-21). "Phlashing attack thrashes embedded systems". theregister.co.uk.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/21/phlashing/. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
10. ^ "Permanent Denial-of-Service Attack Sabotages Hardware". Dark Reading. 2008.
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=154270&WT.svl=news1_1. Retrieved May 19, 2008.
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http://eusecwest.com/speakers.html#Smith.
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13. ^ US credit card firm fights DDoS attack
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15. ^ Vaughn, Randal and Evron, Gadi (2006), DNS Amplification Attacks
16. ^ Encyclopaedia Of Information Technology. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. 2007. pp. 397.
ISBN 8126907525.
17. ^ Schwabach, Aaron (2006). Internet and the Law. ABC-CLIO. pp. 325. ISBN 1851097317.
18. ^ Lu, Xicheng; Wei Zhao (2005). Networking and Mobile Computing. Birkhäuser. pp. 424.
ISBN 3540281029.
19. ^ "YouTube sued by sound-alike site". BBC News. 2006-11-02.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6108502.stm.
20. ^ "RFC 3552 - Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security Considerations". July 2003.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3552.html.
21. ^ January 2001 thread on the UNISOG mailing list
22. ^ Honeynet Project Reverse Challenge
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http://www.icann.org/announcements/factsheet-dns-attack-08mar07.pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
24. ^ Markoff, John (August 13, 2008). "Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks". The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/technology/13cyber.html?em. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
25. ^ Shachtman, Noah (2009-06-15). "Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime". Wired.
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2009-06-15.
26. ^ Outpouring of searches for the late Michael Jackson, June 26, 2009, Official Google Blog
27. ^ Pirate Bay Hit With DDoS Attack After "Selling Out", 8:01 AM - July 1, 2009, by Jane McEntegart -
Tom's Hardware
28. ^ Ongoing denial-of-service attack, August 6, 2009, Twitter Status Blog
29. ^ Facebook Down. Twitter Down. Social Media Meltdown., August 6, 2009, By Pete Cashmore, Mashable
30. ^ Wortham, Jenna; Kramer, Andrew E. (August 8, 2009). "Professor Main Target of Assault on Twitter".
New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/technology/internet/08twitter.html?_r=1&hpw.
Retrieved 2009-08-07.
31. ^ "Garda inquiry under way into alleged attacks on CAO website". The Irish Times. August 28,2010.
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 Article on Denial of Service Attacks

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0828/1224277777493.html. Retrieved 2010-08-28.

32. ^ Managing WLAN Risks with Vulnerability Assessment, August 5, 2008, By Lisa Phifer:Core Competence,
Inc. ,Technology Whitepaper, AirMagnet, Inc.
33. ^ Froutan, Paul (June 24, 2004). "How to defend against DDoS attacks". Computerworld.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/94014/How_to_defend_against_DDoS_attacks. Retrieved May 15,
2010.
34. ^ "Some IoS tips for Internet Service (Providers)" (Mehmet Suzen)
35. ^ Distributed Denial of Service Attacks, by Charalampos Patrikakis, Michalis Masikos, and Olga Zouraraki,
The Internet Protocol Journal - Volume 7, Number 4, National Technical University of Athens, Cisco
Systems Inc
36. ^ "DDoS Mitigation via Regional Cleaning Centers (Jan 2004)"
37. ^ "VeriSign Rolls Out DDoS Monitoring Service"
38. ^ "DDoS: A Threat That's More Common Than You Think"
39. ^ U.K. outlaws denial-of-service attacks, November 10, 2006, By Tom Espiner - CNET News
[edit] External links
 RFC 4732 Internet Denial-of-Service Considerations
 W3C The World Wide Web Security FAQ
 Understanding and surviving DDoS attacks
 cert.org CERT's Guide to DoS attacks.
 ATLAS Summary Report - Real-time global report of DDoS attacks.
 linuxsecurity.com An article on preventing DDoS attacks.
 Is Your PC a Zombie?, About.com.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack"
Categories: Denial-of-service attacks | Internet Relay Chat | Cyberwarfare
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