New Potential Defense Against DDoS Attacks
Category: InternetPosted: April 22, 2008 07:41PM
Author: Nemo
Researchers at the University of Washington have come up with an innovative way to defend servers against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS attacks are generally orchestrated through legions of zombie computers - individual computers that have been compromised and organized into botnets. These networks of computers can then be used to simultaneously send information requests to a target server, overwhelming its ability to respond and subsequently slowing the server's ability to respond to legitimate requests and possibly even causing it to crash. The botnets can even be rented out to extort money from websites. Other recent events, such as the Estonian DDoS attacks, illustrate how they can be used for political purposes as well. The team at the University of Washington have designed a system called Phalanx that turns the tables on attackers by borrowing some of their techniques - specifically using swarms of 'good' computers to protect the host under attack. Instead of requests going directly to the server, each request must first pass through one of the swarm computers known as a 'mailbox'. The mailboxes then pass on the information only when requested by the protected server which allows it to process information at its own pace without becoming overwhelmed. Researchers have tested this approach using a simulated million-bot network attacking a server protected by 7,200 mailbox computers and showed how the server could continue to function even though a majority of its protectors were being attacked simultaneously. One of the research team even postulated on the possibility of incorporating home computers into the defense network in the future.
