DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension: Analysis and defense

Majing Su; Hongli Zhang; Bingxing Fang; Xiaojiang Du

doi:10.1109/ICC.2012.6364105

DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension: Analysis and defense

Majing Su^*
, Hongli Zhang
, Bingxing Fang
, Xiaojiang Du

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology
Temple University

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

BitTorrent (BT) is a well-known Peer-to-Peer (P2P) downloading protocol and has been implemented in several versions. New features and extensions used to improve performance of BitTorrent systems also bring some security issues. In this paper, we analyze potential DDoS vulnerabilities of BT and its Peer Exchange extension. We show the ways of launching connection- exhaustedDDoSattacks. Our experiments demonstrate these attacks are persistent and incur few costs for the attacker. By analyzing the main causes we find that both the defect of implement and the lack of trust and authentication mechanism are to blame, while the latter is critical. To defend against the DDoS attacks, we propose a score-based peer Reputation Exchange (REX) mechanism. Using REX, the score of a malicious peer is less than that of a good peer after several iterations, hence has less chance to be connected. REX makes it difficult to launch a DDoS attack and it can effectively mitigate the effect of the attack.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012
Pages	1048-1052
Number of pages	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICC.2012.6364105
State	Published - 2012
Externally published	Yes
Event	2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012 - Ottawa, ON, Canada Duration: 10 Jun 2012 → 15 Jun 2012

Publication series

Name	IEEE International Conference on Communications
ISSN (Print)	1550-3607

Conference

Conference	2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Ottawa, ON
Period	10/06/12 → 15/06/12

Keywords

BitTorrent
DDoS attack
P2P
peer exchange

Access to Document

10.1109/ICC.2012.6364105

Cite this

@inproceedings{726c9641315c4a918bdb936e1603902e,

title = "DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension: Analysis and defense",

abstract = "BitTorrent (BT) is a well-known Peer-to-Peer (P2P) downloading protocol and has been implemented in several versions. New features and extensions used to improve performance of BitTorrent systems also bring some security issues. In this paper, we analyze potential DDoS vulnerabilities of BT and its Peer Exchange extension. We show the ways of launching connection- exhaustedDDoSattacks. Our experiments demonstrate these attacks are persistent and incur few costs for the attacker. By analyzing the main causes we find that both the defect of implement and the lack of trust and authentication mechanism are to blame, while the latter is critical. To defend against the DDoS attacks, we propose a score-based peer Reputation Exchange (REX) mechanism. Using REX, the score of a malicious peer is less than that of a good peer after several iterations, hence has less chance to be connected. REX makes it difficult to launch a DDoS attack and it can effectively mitigate the effect of the attack.",

keywords = "BitTorrent, DDoS attack, P2P, peer exchange",

author = "Majing Su and Hongli Zhang and Bingxing Fang and Xiaojiang Du",

year = "2012",

doi = "10.1109/ICC.2012.6364105",

language = "英语",

isbn = "9781457720529",

series = "IEEE International Conference on Communications",

pages = "1048--1052",

booktitle = "2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012",

note = "2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012 ; Conference date: 10-06-2012 Through 15-06-2012",

}

Su, M, Zhang, H, Fang, B & Du, X 2012, DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension: Analysis and defense. in 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012., 6364105, IEEE International Conference on Communications, pp. 1048-1052, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012, Ottawa, ON, Canada, 10/06/12. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICC.2012.6364105

DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension: Analysis and defense. / Su, Majing; Zhang, Hongli; Fang, Bingxing et al.
2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012. 2012. p. 1048-1052 6364105 (IEEE International Conference on Communications).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension

T2 - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012

AU - Su, Majing

AU - Zhang, Hongli

AU - Fang, Bingxing

AU - Du, Xiaojiang

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - BitTorrent (BT) is a well-known Peer-to-Peer (P2P) downloading protocol and has been implemented in several versions. New features and extensions used to improve performance of BitTorrent systems also bring some security issues. In this paper, we analyze potential DDoS vulnerabilities of BT and its Peer Exchange extension. We show the ways of launching connection- exhaustedDDoSattacks. Our experiments demonstrate these attacks are persistent and incur few costs for the attacker. By analyzing the main causes we find that both the defect of implement and the lack of trust and authentication mechanism are to blame, while the latter is critical. To defend against the DDoS attacks, we propose a score-based peer Reputation Exchange (REX) mechanism. Using REX, the score of a malicious peer is less than that of a good peer after several iterations, hence has less chance to be connected. REX makes it difficult to launch a DDoS attack and it can effectively mitigate the effect of the attack.

AB - BitTorrent (BT) is a well-known Peer-to-Peer (P2P) downloading protocol and has been implemented in several versions. New features and extensions used to improve performance of BitTorrent systems also bring some security issues. In this paper, we analyze potential DDoS vulnerabilities of BT and its Peer Exchange extension. We show the ways of launching connection- exhaustedDDoSattacks. Our experiments demonstrate these attacks are persistent and incur few costs for the attacker. By analyzing the main causes we find that both the defect of implement and the lack of trust and authentication mechanism are to blame, while the latter is critical. To defend against the DDoS attacks, we propose a score-based peer Reputation Exchange (REX) mechanism. Using REX, the score of a malicious peer is less than that of a good peer after several iterations, hence has less chance to be connected. REX makes it difficult to launch a DDoS attack and it can effectively mitigate the effect of the attack.

KW - BitTorrent

KW - DDoS attack

KW - P2P

KW - peer exchange

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84871991446

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M3 - 会议稿件

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SN - 9781457720529

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BT - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications, ICC 2012

Y2 - 10 June 2012 through 15 June 2012

ER -

DDoS vulnerability of BitTorrent Peer Exchange extension: Analysis and defense

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