What is an HTTP flood attack

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 An HTTP flood attack definition

In a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assault called an HTTP flood, a web server or application is targeted by an attacker who takes advantage of what appear to be valid HTTP GET or POST requests.

A botnet "zombie army" is a collection of Internet-connected machines that have all been maliciously taken over, typically with the use of malware like Trojan Horses. HTTP flood attacks are volumetric attacks that frequently use this army.

HTTP floods are a sophisticated Layer 7 attack that utilize less bandwidth than other attacks to take down the targeted server or website because they don't employ spoofing, reflection, or malformed packets.

As a result, they necessitate a deeper comprehension of the targeted website or application, and each attack must be individually designed to be successful. Because of this, it is much more difficult to identify and prevent HTTP flood attacks.

Attack Narrative: 

An HTTP request, often one of the two types of requests: GET or POST, is sent whenever an HTTP client, such as a web browser, "talks" to an application or server. POST requests are used to access dynamically created resources while GET requests are used to access conventional, static information like images.

The attack is most successful when it compels the server or application to allocate all available resources to each individual request. As a result, the attacker will typically try to overwhelm the server or application with as many requests that require a lot of processing as possible.

Because POST requests might contain parameters that start complicated server-side processing, HTTP flood attacks involving POST requests typically use the most resources from the attacker's perspective. On the other hand, HTTP GET-based attacks can scale better in a botnet situation and are easier to develop.

Techniques for minimizing: 

Due to the fact that HTTP flood attacks make use of common URL requests, it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish them from legitimate traffic. They are consequently among the most sophisticated non-vulnerability security issues that servers and apps are currently facing. Since the traffic volume in HTTP floods frequently falls below detection thresholds, traditional rate-based detection is useless for identifying HTTP flood attacks.

The most highly successful mitigation techniques include several traffic profiling techniques, such as monitoring aberrant activity, recognizing IP reputation, and implementing progressive security challenges (e.g., asking to parse JavaScript).



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