Detecting DoS Attacks on Notification Services

A notification service alerts a large number of recipients of important or emergency events in a timely manner. A Denial of Service (DoS) attack inserts unnecessary traffic to slow down or choke the notification service. A challenge of detecting DoS attacks lies in distinguishing them from temporary surges in normal traffic. This paper proposes an escalation hierarchy to detect DoS attacks by monitoring performance degradations at various levels. Our analysis shows the effectiveness of the approach. Further trials are underway.