Designing and Modeling the Slow Next DoS Attack

In the last years the Internet has become a primary tool for information dissemination, spreading itself on the entire world and becoming a necessary communication system. More recently, thanks to the advent of the Internet of Things paradigm, a wide range of objects (such as washing machines, thermostats, fridges) is able to communicate on the Internet. As a consequence of this large adoption, due to economic motivations, the Internet is often targeted by cyber-criminals. In this paper, we present a novel attack called Slow Next, targeting Internet services (IoT, cloud, mobile hosted, etc.). We analyze that the proposed menace is able to lead a Denial of Service on different categories of network protocols using a low amount of network bandwidth. Moreover, since connections behavior is legitimate, Slow Next is able to elude detection systems. The attack represents therefore a potential menace on the cybersecurity field.