Title: A taxonomy of DDoS attacks and its impact on Docker architecture

Authors: Sushant Chamoli; Varsha Mittal

Addresses: CSE Department, Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, India ' CSE Department, Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, India

Abstract: Cloud infrastructure has become a favourite target for attackers as more and more organisations are switching to it owing to features like availability, scalability, and cost savings. Virtualisation has been the core of cloud computing and Docker containers are picking up ubiquity as a virtualisation tool, owing to their lighter weight and quicker start-up times. However, because the containers share the underlying host kernel, any container-level attack can have serious consequences for the host system. This study analyses and categorises the DDoS attack - one of the most prevalent and straightforward attacks. Docker architecture has been accompanied by its threat model to gain an understanding of various attack surfaces that can be exploited in a Docker ecosystem. Finally, following a simulation of DDoS attack on the Docker container, approaches unique to the Docker architecture are suggested for mitigating such attacks.

Keywords: distributed-denial-of-service; DDoS; Docker; cloud; security; taxonomy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2024.139047

International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2024 Vol.23 No.4, pp.375 - 395

Received: 28 Jul 2022
Accepted: 10 Feb 2023
Published online: 10 Jun 2024 *

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