An Analysis of DDoS Attacks on the Instant Messengers

Abstract

Latest technologies of voice over IP (VoIP) and mobile messaging for smartphones messengers such as WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, etc., offer free-of-charge facilities of worldwide SMS, MMS, and voice calls to their users, unlike the traditional and expensive cellular or telephone networks’ services. Customers of the formerly mentioned messengers are estimated in millions because of the attractive features offered by them. However, these messengers face many cyber security threats and the required security features are either not available at all or are insufficient for efficiently countering the threats. Professionals working in the domain of cyber security are challenged by the devastating effects of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on all major platforms including Apple Macintosh, Windows, Unix, and Linux. In this paper, we demonstrate the effect of DDoS attack on the performance of an IRC server using a test bed. We use a game theoretic model to analyze the feasibility of DDoS attacks on the IRC platform, keeping in view the attacker’s objective. The analysis will help the security experts to propose appropriate countermeasures to reduce the attackers’ utility, thereby making it less attractive for those attackers to launch the attack.