SlowDroid is the first
[Alturki, A. A. U. M. A., Vivek, T. B. K. M. K., & Talcott, N. A. S. C. (2019). Resource-Bounded Intruders in Denial of Service Attacks.] denial of service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
which allows a single mobile device to take down a network server requiring minimal bandwidth.
The attack has been created for research purposes by Enrico Cambiaso and Maurizio Aiello for the IEIIT Institute of the
National Research Council of Italy
The National Research Council (Italian: ''Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR'') is the largest research council in Italy. As a public organisation, its remit is to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Rome. ...
and released as an
Android application.
SlowDroid behavior is similar to other
Slow DoS Attack The term Slow DoS Attack (abbreviated to SDA) was introduced in 2013, to clearly define a specific category of denial of service attacks which make use of low-bandwidth rate to accomplish their purpose.
Similar terms can be found in literature, such ...
s such as
Slowloris, since it creates many connections with the victim in order to saturate the resources of the listening daemon application.
One difference is on sent payload, which in case of SlowDroid is not compliant to a specific protocol: instead of sending a forged HTTP request, an endless sequence of spaces is sent instead. This characteristic makes SlowDroid able to target different protocols with the same payload.
Another difference is on sending: during the data sending phase, instead of sending a sequence of characters as Slowloris does, SlowDroid sends a single character, hence reducing the bandwidth amounts.
Finally, the main difference is on implementation: SlowDroid has been implemented to be executed on the Android mobile operating system platform.
SlowDroid was initially published on the
Google Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating syst ...
. Due to developers terms of service, the application has been removed by the store.
SlowDroid can also be used as a botnet
and it was used also by the
Anonymous group of
hacktivists
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in ha ...
.
SlowDroid was mentioned in an official
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
document
and it was presented in scientific conferences.
See also
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Slowloris (computer security)
Slowloris is a type of denial of service attack tool which allows a single machine to take down another machine's web server with minimal bandwidth and side effects on unrelated services and ports.
Slowloris tries to keep many connections to th ...
*
Trinoo
*
Stacheldraht
*
Denial of service
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
*
LAND
Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of the planet Earth that is not submerged by the ocean or other bodies of water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and various isla ...
*
Low Orbit Ion Cannon
Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) is an open-source network stress testing and denial-of-service attack application written in C#. LOIC was initially developed by Praetox Technologies, however it was later released into the public domain and is cur ...
*
High Orbit Ion Cannon
High Orbit Ion Cannon (HOIC) is an open-source network stress testing and denial-of-service attack application designed to attack as many as 256 URLs at the same time. It was designed to replace the Low Orbit Ion Cannon which was developed by ...
References
{{Reflist
Denial-of-service attacks
Android (operating system) software