A Survey on HTTP Flooding—A Distributed Denial of Service Attack

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack is a particular type of Denial of Service (DOS) attack in which, a web server is sent multiple requests in huge amount, simultaneously from unauthorized users in such a way that, the legitimate users are denied access the services of the server. HTTP Flooding attack which exploits the application layer, is amongst some of the very popular DDOS attacks. This attack uses HTTP requests which are indistinguishable from valid user requests. In this paper, the basics of HTTP Flooding attacks have been discussed along with its main types i.e., HTTP GET flood and HTTP POST flood attack, along with the tools and techniques used for the attack. Further, a study of existing methodologies for detection of HTTP Flooding attack in cloud and IoT (Internet of Things) environment has been described. Mitigation of these attacks is also an important aspect. Hence, a study of some existing techniques for the mitigation of application layer HTTP Flooding attack is also shown in later part of this paper.