Personal Denial of Service (PDOS) Attacks: A Discussion and Exploration of a New Category of Cyber Crime

Abstract

The growth of the Internet has created a corresponding growth in Internet-based crimes and online misbehavior, particularly among younger computer-savvy people. Younger generations have grown up in a world where internet access, social networking, e-commerce and smartphones are commonplace. Given this fact, they have learned how to use, and how to abuse, technology. This leads us to define a new category of cybercrime called a Personal Denial of Service attack (PDOS). A PDOS is a cyber-crime in which an individual deliberately prevents the access of another individual or small group to online services such as email or banking. Due to the nature of a PDOS, these acts can be overlooked by law enforcement and organizations that operate Internet infrastructure, such as universities. Our motivation for this work is twofold: to stress the need for cyber ethics education at the university level, and to illustrate how a previously uncategorized type of cyber crime is easily perpetrated in such an environment. To achieve these goals, we define a PDOS attack and discuss how it differs from other categories of attacks. We also examine the motivation for a PDOS attack in the context of the Routine Activities Theory of criminal justice. We further discuss a "proof of concept" survey administered at four different universities to ascertain their attitudes towards online account breaches as related to a PDOS attack. The survey provides initial evidence that account breaches, which are an integral part of a PDOS attack, are a worrisome threat on university campuses and further points to a need for cyber ethics training.

Solving Downgrade and DoS Attack Due to the Four Ways Handshake Vulnerabilities (WIFI)

“…Although TKIP addresses all known vulnerabilities, yet it had some limitations due to the use of legacy hardware. TKIP relies on Message Integrity Check (MIC) algorithm called Michael, which provided inadequate security [7,8].…”

Personal Denial of Service Attacks (PDOS) and Online Misbehavior: The Need for Cyber Ethics and Information Security Education on University Campuses

“…As previously mentioned, a PDOS [5] is an attack on a person or small group where access to online services is denied through a clever manipulation of existing security procedures implemented by the online service providers. With the dependence on "the cloud" for accessing remotely hosted applications, synchronizing applications between devices, storage, and a myriad of other purposes, continuous access to online services accounts is not a mere luxury, but a necessity for many individuals to live their life each day.…”

“…This work examines the need for information security and cyber ethics training for all university students and does so in the context of a newly categorized type of cybercrime, the Personal Denial of Service attack (PDOS) [5] and similar forms of online misbehavior. The need for basic information security and cyber ethics training for all students arises from the environment of a highly networked university campus and the close proximity students have with one another in it.…”