DoS / DDoS
Overwhelms a service or network with traffic, often from many compromised hosts
categoryNetwork and infrastructure attacksseverityMediumdetectabilityHighlabnot yet measured
Example: 76.7% of EU incidents (ENISA 2025)
Classification
28 values: 10 reviewed, 14 imported, 4 derived. What do these mean?
Exploitability
| Attack vector | Network attacks |
|---|---|
| Reach (CVSS) | Network |
| Attack complexity | Low |
| Privileges required | None |
| User interaction | None |
| Attacker skill required | Low |
| Resources required | Low |
| Likelihood / prevalence | High |
| Maturity | Commoditized |
Impact & scope
| Severity | Medium |
|---|---|
| Impact | Availability |
| Platform | ContainersIaaSLinuxmacOSWindows |
| Environment | CloudOn-premises |
| Target asset class | Network deviceServer |
| Kill-chain phase (tactic) | Impact |
Detection & telemetry
| Detectability | High |
|---|---|
| Data sources (ATT&CK data components) | Application Log ContentHost StatusInstance StartNetwork Connection CreationNetwork Traffic FlowProcess Creation |
Detection & response
Mitigated by 12
- M1037 attack-mitigation
D3-APCAd3fendD3-CSPPd3fendD3-ISVAd3fendD3-ITFd3fendD3-NTCDd3fendD3-NTFd3fendD3-NTSAd3fendD3-PHDURAd3fendD3-PMADd3fendD3-RTSDd3fendD3-UGLPAd3fend
Detected by 12
- DET0208 attack-detection-strategy
- DET0518 attack-detection-strategy
1da8ce0b-855d-4004-8860-7d64d42063b1sigma3f2c93c7-7b2a-4d58-bb8d-6f39422d8148sigma40967487-139b-4811-81d9-c9767a92aa5asigma48d91a3a-2363-43ba-a456-ca71ac3da5c2sigma59ec40bb-322e-40ab-808d-84fa690d7e56sigma7cded4b3-f09e-405a-b96f-24248433ba44sigma999e8307-a775-4d5f-addc-4855632335besigmaea61bb82-a5e0-42e6-8537-91d29500f1b9sigmaf14719ce-d3ab-4e25-9ce6-2899092260b0sigmaf8a66a02-4a16-46e5-b7fd-a42c8a93d137sigma
Attack relationships
- Child: ACK flood
- Child: Application-layer (L7) DDoS
- Child: BlackNurse
- Child: CLDAP reflection
- Child: DNS amplification
- Child: DNS flood
- Child: Fraggle
- Child: HTTP flood
- Child: ICMP / ping flood
- Child: Memcached amplification
- Child: NTP amplification
- Child: NXDOMAIN / random-subdomain flood
- Child: Ping of Death
- Child: Protocol / state-exhaustion DDoS
- Child: QUIC flood
- Child: R.U.D.Y. (slow POST)
- Child: Reflection / amplification DDoS
- Child: Slow Read
- Child: Slowloris
- Child: Smurf
- Child: SSDP / UPnP reflection
- Child: SYN flood
- Child: Teardrop
- Child: UDP flood
- Child: Volumetric DDoS
- Child: WinNuke / nuke
Framework references
- Primary source: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/what-is-a-ddos-attack/
- attack: T1498 (primary)
- attack: T1499
Evidence & sources
- ev-0001 (Cyber Attack Taxonomy) — Name, definition and Example/ID taken verbatim from the 'Network and infrastructure attacks' table, line 124 of Cyber-Attack-Taxonomy.md
- ev-0002 (MITRE Enterprise ATT&CK v19.2 (STIX 2.1)) — ATT&CK usage prevalence: 3 groups/software/campaigns reference this technique (ATT&CK enterprise v19.2)