A comparative study on flood DoS and low-rate DoS attacks

Denial of service (DoS) attacks is a serious threat for the Internet. DoS attacks can consume memory, Computer processing unit (CPU), and network bandwidths and damage or shut down the operation of the resource under attack. In this paper, based on the taxonomy of DoS attacks, two typical types of DoS—flood DoS (FDoS) and low-rate DoS (LDoS) attacks, are studied on their generation principle, mechanism utilization, signature, impacts, and defense mechanisms. Simulation results illustrate that 1) FDoS is easy to be launched but its signature is easy to be detected. 2) LDoS organizes an average small quantity of traffic and it is stealthier. Comparison of LDoS with FDoS shed light on the emerging new features of DoS attacks and can make the detection and defense mechanisms more efficient.