Cybersecurity DDoS Student Research

IT student José Antonio Rodríguez Fernández presented results of his research project at the University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UM-CUR). His presentation entitled Analysis of Recent DDoS Attacks: An Application of Mirkovic and Peng Taxonomies provides a methodology for categorizing DDoS attacks. Jose is an international student from Spain visiting the Applied Computing and Engineering Technology department. Professor Tom Gallagher is serving as Jose's research mentor.

Abstract
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a threat for all companies. Every second that the company is offline, a tremendous amount of money is lost. Since the introduction of the Internet, DDoS attacks have been a common occurrence, yet solutions to counter them have been limited. This research project analyzes the recent DDoS attacks based upon the financial, societal and technical impact. Besides that, the taxonomies of Mirkovic and Peng will be used to classify details of recent DDoS attacks with the goal of identifying common characteristics. Mirkovic's taxonomy analyzes in a very technical depth the DDoS attacks meanwhile Peng's taxonomy is more generic. Both these taxonomies are quoted by several authors although nobody has used them to create a classification of attacks. This research project is useful to individuals interested in developing solutions for computer network and information security since there is no classification made or any method for classifying them.