HoneyMesh: Preventing Distributed Denial of Service Attacks using Virtualized Honeypots

Today, internet and web services have become an inseparable part of our lives. Hence, ensuring continuous availability of service has become imperative to the success of any organization. But these services are often hampered by constant threats from myriad types of attacks. One such attack is called distributed denial of service attack that results in issues ranging from temporary slowdown of servers to complete non-availability of service. Honeypot, which is a sort of a trap, can be used to interact with potential attackers to deflect, detect or prevent such attacks and ensure continuous availability of service. This paper gives insights into the problems posed by distributed denial of service attacks, existing solutions that use honeypots and how a mesh of virtualized honeypots can be used to prevent distributed denial of service attacks. Keywords—Distributed denial of service, handler, agent, attack source, victim server, firewall, honeypot, virtual machines, daemon, behavioral analysis, challenge response, virtual network, flooding, crashing, intrusion detection, router, honeywall, honeymesh.