Master thesis | Crisis and Security Management (MSc)
open access
The duration, intensity, and diversity of Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are on the rise and due to the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) will only increase this trend. As the...Show moreThe duration, intensity, and diversity of Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are on the rise and due to the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) will only increase this trend. As the DDoS attacks on the Belastingdienst, the Bunq bank, internet site Tweakers, and internet provider Tweak show, even Dutch teenagers can perform DDoS attacks on vital organisations such as financial and governmental institutions. Therefore, DDoS attacks pose a real treat to Dutch society. Presented in the report of the NCSC (2019), the main issue with DDoS attacks is the lack of resilience measurements. This research approaches the defence against DDoS attacks from a new perspective. It substantiates the choice to start with resilience instead of security and explains the differences between the two notions. The research extends the resilience matrix of Linkov et al. (2013-b) to offer organisations an holistic view to DDoS mitigation. The matrix did not provide measurable elements and was not designed for DDoS attacks. For this reason, this research consists of expert interviews and a literature study to redesign the matrix. The research finds elements in the different domains and phases and suggests new aspects and adjustments to the resilience matrix. By rethinking the resilience matrix, this research suggests measurable aspects, interrelations between the aspects, and outcomes for resilience. It becomes evident that measuring resilience requires more emphasis on the planning and preparation phase, a new legal domain, and on splitting the social domain into an internal and external domain. It also lays out the steps to an overall system resilience and finds that this requires the metrics to involve the interrelationships between the aspects and cells of the matrix, something previous scholars overlooked. In addition, resilience will only be shown during a test or attack. It is up to the organisation to determine in which of the two situations they would prefer to find out. Finally, a resilience measurement will become less valid over time. Therefore, organisations would need to re-evaluate their systems regularly. This study paves the way for future research. Based on the findings, it is evident that scholars should aim to adjust the selection of interviewees, involve scholars with different backgrounds, take interrelationships into account, add measurements on individual aspects, include weights, and append aspects in the legal, internal, and external domains.Show less
