A survey on Blockchain solutions in DDoS attacks mitigation: Techniques, open challenges and future directions

Abstract

With the proliferation of new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) in recent years, the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack vector has broadened and opened new opportunities for more sophisticated DDoS attacks on the targeted victims. The new attack vector includes unsecured and vulnerable IoT devices connected to the internet, and denial of service vulnerabilities like southbound channel saturation in the SDN architecture. Given the high-volume and pervasive nature of these attacks, it is beneficial for stakeholders to collaborate in detecting and mitigating the denial of service attacks promptly. Blockchain technology is considered to improve the security aspects owing to the decentralized design, secured distributed storage, and privacy. A thorough exploration and classification of blockchain techniques used for DDoS attack mitigation are not explored in the prior art. This paper reviews and categorizes state-of-the-art DDoS mitigation solutions based on blockchain technology. The DDoS mitigation techniques are classified based on the solution deployment location i.e. network-based, near attacker location, near victim location, and hybrid solutions in the network architecture with emphasis on the IoT and SDN architectures. Additionally, based on our study, the research challenges and future directions to implement the blockchain based DDoS mitigation solutions are discussed.