Exposing and Eliminating Vulnerabilities to Denial of Service Attacks in Secure Gossip-Based Multicast

Gal Badishi, Technion

We propose a framework and methodology for quantifying the effect of denial of service (DoS) attacks on a distributed system. We present a systematic study of the resistance of gossip-based multicast protocols to DoS attacks. We show that even distributed and randomized gossip-based protocols, which eliminate single points of failure, do not necessarily eliminate vulnerabilities to DoS attacks. We propose Drum -- a simple gossip-based multicast protocol that eliminates such vulnerabilities. Drum was implemented in Java and tested on a large cluster. We show, using closed-form mathematical analysis, simulations, and empirical tests, that Drum survives severe DoS attacks. Joint work with Idit Keidar and Amir Sasson.

Gates 4B (opposite 490) Thursday 09/16/04 1630 hrs