Practical network support for IP traceback

This paper describes a technique for tracing anonymous packet flooding attacks in the Internet back towards their source. This work is motivated by the increased frequency and sophistication of denial-of-service attacks and by the difficulty in tracing packets with incorrect, or “spoofed”, source addresses. In this paper we describe a general purpose traceback mechanism based on probabilistic packet marking in the network. Our approach allows a victim to identify the network path(s) traversed by attack traffic without requiring interactive operational support from Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Moreover, this traceback can be performed “post-mortem” – after an attack has completed. We present an implementation of this technology that is incrementally deployable, (mostly) backwards compatible and can be efficiently implemented using conventional technology.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: SIGCOMM
• Authors: Stefan Savage, David Wetherall, Anna R. Karlin, Thomas E. Anderson
• Keywords: Communications, Denial-of-service Attacks, Packet flooding Attacks, Purpose Traceback Mechanism, SIGCOMM 2000