ProtectDDoS: A Platform for Trustworthy Offering and Recommendation of Protections

Abstract

As the dependency of businesses on digital services increases, their vulnerability to cyberattacks increases, too. Besides providing innovative services, business owners must focus on investing in robust cybersecurity mechanisms to countermeasure cyberattacks. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks remain one of the most dangerous cyberattacks, e.g., leading to service disruption, financial loss, and reputation harm. Although protection measures exist, a catalog of solutions is missing, which could help network operators to access and filter information in order to select suitable protections for specific demands. This work presents ProtectDDoS, a platform offering recommendations of DDoS protections. ProtectDDoS provides a blockchain-based catalog, where DDoS protection providers can announce details regarding their services, while users can obtain recommendations of DDoS protections according to their specific demands (e.g., price, attacks supported, or geolocation constraints). ProtectDDoS’s Smart Contract (SC) maintains the integrity of data about protections available and provides tamper-proof reputation. To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of ProtectDDoS, a prototype was implemented and a case study conducted to discuss costs, including interactions with the SC.