A Load Balancing Algorithm against DDoS attacks in beyond 3G wireless networks

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack aims at exhausting the resources of a communication system. A large amount of requests is sent to the targeted system by malicious users: the overload compromises the correct working of the structure. If the attack is successful, the system stops working. The assault does not provide the hacker with any sensitive information; so it does not appear as dangerous as it really is. Nevertheless, the denial of service is a huge security risk for Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. In order to avoid this kind of risk, we present a mechanism that relocates the resources requested by the users, both voice and data. It is able to transfer the overload from congested eNodeBs to eNodeBs with free capacities. The mechanism is a Load Balancing Algorithm, fully integrated in the architecture of LTE networks. We simulated the attack scenario through Network Simulator 3 (ns-3). If the proposed algorithm is active, in case of a DDoS attack, communication services are always available for users.