Denial of service in ISPs in Kenya

Abstract

Disruption from service caused by Denial of Service (DoS) attacks is an increasing phenomenon in the internet today. DoS attacks are a virulent, relatively new type of attack on the availability of Internet services and resources. DoS attackers infiltrate large numbers of computers by exploiting software vulnerabilities, to set up attack networks. These unwitting computers are then invoked to wage a coordinated, largescale attack against one or more victim systems resulting in a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS). These attacks are mainly directed to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that lack the incentive, expertise, and financial zeal to defend against them. This thesis explores DoS attacks in Kenyan based ISPs and discusses the means by which these DoS attacks could be mitigated using Snort, an Open Source Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS). Based on the understanding of DoS attacks on ISPs in Kenya, we propose a solution to detect, prevent and react to DoS attacks.