Can Multipath TCP Be Robust to Cyber Attacks? A Measuring Study of MPTCP with Active Queue Management Algorithms

Abstract

With the development of social networks, more and more mobile social network devices have multiple interfaces. Multipath TCP (MPTCP), as an emerging transmission protocol, can fit multiple link bandwidths to improve data transmission performance and improve user experience quality. At the same time, due to the large-scale deployment and application of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud computing, cyber attacks against MPTCP have gradually increased. More and more network security research studies point out that low-rate distributed denial of service (LDDoS) attacks are relatively popular and difficult to detect and are recognized as one of the most severe threats to network services. This article introduces six classic queue management algorithms: DropTail, RED, FRED, REM, BLUE, and FQ. In a multihomed network environment, we perform the performance evaluation of MPTCP under LDDoS attacks in terms of throughput, delay, and packet loss rate when using the six algorithms, respectively, by simulations. The results show that in an MPTCP-enabled multihomed network, different queue management algorithms have different throughput, delay, and packet loss rate performance when subjected to LDDoS attacks. Considering these three performance indicators comprehensively, the FRED algorithm has better performance. By adopting an effective active queue management (AQM) algorithm, the MPTCP transmission system can enhance its robustness capability, thus improving transmission performance. We suggest that when designing and improving the queue management algorithm, the antiattack performance of the algorithm should be considered: (1) it can adjust the traffic speed by optimizing the congestion control mechanism; (2) the fairness of different types of data streams sharing bandwidth is taken into consideration; and (3) it has the ability to adjust the parameters of the queue management algorithm in a timely and accurate manner.