Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): A History


Brooks R. R., Yu L., ÖZÇELİK İ., Oakley J., Tusing N.

IEEE ANNALS OF THE HISTORY OF COMPUTING, vol.44, no.2, pp.44-54, 2022 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 44 Issue: 2
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Doi Number: 10.1109/mahc.2021.3072582
  • Journal Name: IEEE ANNALS OF THE HISTORY OF COMPUTING
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, FRANCIS, ABI/INFORM, Aerospace Database, American History and Life, Applied Science & Technology Source, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Communication Abstracts, Compendex, Computer & Applied Sciences, Historical Abstracts, INSPEC, Metadex, zbMATH, Civil Engineering Abstracts
  • Page Numbers: pp.44-54
  • Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks remain a persistent nuisance on the Internet. They exploit the fact that the Internet lacks centralized access control. Since this vulnerability was a core design decision of the early Internet, DDoS attacks have persisted. This article presents the technologies and tools that are used in DDoS, followed by a timeline of the major DDoS incidents. This is followed by a discussion of the primary classes of DDoS incidents and how the computing ecosystem enables DDoS. Early attacks were related to hacker culture, but their focus quickly changed to commercial exploitation. There have also been a number of political uses of DDoS, including cyberwar, hacktivism, and terrorism.