Motives behind ddos attacks

Abstract

Behind everything we do in our daily lives there is a reason for doing it. This paper looks into the motives behind DDoS attacks as a form of cyberattack along with attacker personas. This paper also investigates DDoS attacks technically and it is suggested that there is a need for a socio-technical approach to these attacks to investigate why they occur and the reasoning the attacker(s) could have for launching these attacks. This paper finds several motives behind DDoS attacks and discusses the profiles that attackers can be sorted into. Also discussed are the motives that attacker profiles can have for launching DDoS attacks. Although mitigation techniques are in place to control the damage a DDoS attack can cause to a company, if the motives can be addressed first, these attacks could be prevented. With the use of case studies, visualisations and tables, the motives behind DDoS attacks and attacker personas are presented.