Resource Exhaustion and DoS

Cloud architecture helps minimise the impact of DoS or DDoS attacks, however, in recent years the volume of bps (bits per second), pps (packets per second) and rps (requests per second) have increased significantly. Attackers often use botnets consisting of numerous compromised devices to carry out their attacks.

Attackers can launch more targeted attacks against cloud-hosted applications to trigger resource exhaustion. Single-packet DoS vulnerabilities could be exploited against network equipment in cloud environments. An example of a DoS attack that could affect cloud environments is the direct-to-origin (D2O) attack. This attack allows threat actors to reveal the origin network behind a proxy or CDN in front of web services.