Abstract
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are a major security threat against the availability of conventional or cloud computing resources. Numerous DDoS attacks, which have been launched against various organizations in the last decade, have had a direct impact on both vendors and users. Many researchers have attempted to tackle the security threat of DDoS attacks by combining classification algorithms with distributed computing. However, their solutions are static in terms of the classification algorithms used. In fact, current DDoS attacks have become so dynamic and sophisticated that they are able to pass the detection system thereby making it difficult for static solutions to detect. In this paper, we propose a dynamic DDoS attack detection system based on three main components: 1) classification algorithms; 2) a distributed system; and 3) a fuzzy logic system. Our framework uses fuzzy logic to dynamically select an algorithm from a set of prepared classification algorithms that detect different DDoS patterns. Out of the many candidate classification algorithms, we use Naive Bayes, Decision Tree (Entropy), Decision Tree (Gini), and Random Forest as candidate algorithms. We have evaluated the performance of classification algorithms and their delays and validated the fuzzy logic system. We have also evaluated the effectiveness of the distributed system and its impact on the classification algorithms delay. The results show that there is a trade-off between the utilized classification algorithms' accuracies and their delays. We observe that the fuzzy logic system can effectively select the right classification algorithm based on the traffic status.