Ensuring availability of information by Preventing denial of service attacks

Abstract

From the past two decades Denial-of-Service attack continues to be the most challenging newlineproblem in the Internet. Very little efforts are required for the execution of a DoS attack,since a large number of vulnerable machines on the internet provide a fertile ground for attackers for launching such attacks. Also the availability of vast number of exploitation newlinetools, automated scripts add to the misery as these tools and scripts can easily be used for vulnerability exploitation and the launching of DoS attacks. At the receiving end of DoS attack is the victim machine, who in case of a successful attack is deprived of its rightful state of working. The victim machine can be any machine from a standalone host to an information system catering to the needs of thousands of legitimate clients. The primary newlinetarget of DoS attack is dismantling the security structure that exists in and around of an information system or any host machine. In the process a majority of security parameters get affected, one of them is AVAILABILITY. AVAILABILITY, together with CONFIDENTAILITY and INTEGRITY, has been the most critical component of information security for over three decades now and has suffered more at the hands of DoS attacks than the other security attributes, but ironically has received very low attention as compared to the other security attributes. newlineThe primary goal of the research is to investigate the impact of DoS attacks on newlineAVAILABILITY. A through study on AVAILABILITY is needed so that the factors that determine AVAILABILITY can be identified. The importance of AVAILABILITY as a security attribute in the information security paradigm and its critical relation with the other security attributes remains the driving point throughout the study, given the current state of AVAILABILITY in theory and practice as a security attribute. After the identification newlineof AVAILABILITY determinants, they need to be tested against DoS attacks, for the study and analysis of the question how DoS attacks affect AVAILABILITY? to validate ... newline