Here the few list of common DDoS attacks types.
Application Level Attacks
DDoS attacks can target a specific application or a badly coded website to exploit its weakness and take down the entire server as a result. WordPress and Joomla are two examples of applications that can be targeted to exhaust a server’s resources – RAM, CPU, etc. Databases can also be targeted with SQL injections designed to exploit these loopholes.
Zero Day (0day) DDoS
This is a standard term (like John Doe) used to describe an attack that is exploiting new vulnerabilities. These ZERO Day DDoS vulnerabilities do not have patches or effective defensive mechanisms.
Ping Flood
An evolved version of ICMP flood, this DDoS attack is also application specific. When a server receives a lot of spoofed Ping packets from a very large set of source IP it is being targeted by a Ping Flood attack. Such an attack’s goal is to flood the target with ping packets until it goes offline.
It is designed to consume all available bandwidth and resources in the network until it is completely drained out and shuts down. This type of DDoS attack is also not easy to detect as it can easily resemble legitimate traffic.
IP Null Attack
Packets contain IPv4 headers which carry information about which Transport Protocol is being used. When attackers set the value of this field to zero, these packets can bypass security measures designed to scan TCP, IP, and ICMP. When the target server tries to put process these packets, it will eventually exhaust its resources and reboot.
CharGEN Flood
It is a very old protocol which can be exploited to execute amplified attacks. A CharGEN amplification attack is carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to internet enabled devices running CharGEN. These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target.
SNMP Flood
Like a CharGEN attack, SNMP can also be used for amplification attacks. SNMP is mainly used on network devices. SNMP amplification attack is carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to the internet enabled devices running SNMP.
These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target. However, amplification effect in SNMP can be greater when compared with CHARGEN and DNS attacks. When the target tries to make sense of this flood of requests, it will end up exhausting its resources and go offline or reboot.
NTP Flood
The NTP protocol is another publicly accessible network protocol. The NTP amplification attack is also carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to internet enabled devices running NTP.
These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target. When the target tries to make sense of this flood of requests, it will end up exhausting its resources and go offline or reboot.
Other Amplified DDoS Attacks
All amplified attacks use the same strategy described above for CHARGEN, NTP, etc. Other UDP protocols that have been identified as possible tools for carring out amplification flood attacks U.S. CERT are:
SNMPv2
NetBIOS
QOTD
BitTorrent
Kad
Quake Network Protocol
Steam Protocol
Fragmented HTTP Flood
In this example of a sophisticated attack on a known loophole, BOTs with a valid IP are used to establish a valid HTTP connection with a web server. Then, HTTP packets are split by the bot into tiny fragments and sent to the target as slowly as it allows before it times out. This method allows the attackers to keep a connection active for a long time without alerting any defense mechanisms.
An attacker can use one BOT to initiate several undetected, extended and resource consuming sessions. Popular web servers like Apache do not have effective timeout mechanisms. This is a DDoS security loophole that can be exploited with a few BOTs to stop web services.
HTTP Flood
The real IP of the BOTs is used to avoid suspicion. The number of BOTs used to execute the attack is same as the source IP range for this attack. Since the IP addresses of the BOTs are not spoofed, there is no reason for defense mechanisms to flag these valid HTTP requests.
One BOT can be used to send a large number of GET, POST or other HTTP requests to execute an attack. Several bots can be combined in an HTTP DDoS attack to completely cripple the target server.
Single Session HTTP Flood
An attacker can exploit a loophole in HTTP 1.1 to send several requests from a single HTTP session. This allows attackers to send a large number of requests from a handful of sessions. In other words, attackers can bypass the limitations imposed by DDoS defense mechanisms on the number of sessions allowed.
Single Session HTTP Flood also targets a server’s resources to trigger a complete system shutdown or poor performance.
Recursive HTTP GET Flood
For an attack to be highly successful, it must remain undetected for as long as possible. The best method to go undetected is to appear as a legitimate request by staying within all the limitations while another attack is being executed. Recursive GET achieves this on its own by collecting a list of pages or images and appearing to be going through these pages or images.
This attack can be combined with an HTTP flood attack for maximum impact.
Multi-Vector Attacks
We talked about attackers combining Recursive GET attacks with HTTP flood attacks to amplify the effects of an attack. That’s just one example of an attacker using two types of DDoS attacks at the same time to target a server. Attacks can also combine several methods to keep the engineers dealing with the DDoS attack confused.
These attacks are the toughest to deal with and are capable of taking down some of the best-protected servers and networks.
SYN Flood
This attack exploits the design of the three-way TCP communication process between a client, host, and a server. In this process, a client initiates a new session by generating a SYN packet. The host assigns and checks these sessions until they are closed by the client. To carry out a SYN Flood attack, an attacker sends a lot of SYN packets to the target server from spoofed IP addresses.
This attack goes on until it exhausts a server’s connection table memory –stores and processes these incoming SYN packets. The result is a server unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources until the attack lasts.
SYN-ACK Flood
The second step of the three-way TCP communication process is exploited by this DDoS attack. In this step, a SYN-ACK packet is generated by the listening host to acknowledge an incoming SYN packet. A large amount of spoofed SYN-ACK packets is sent to a target server in a SYN-ACK Flood attack. The attack tries to exhaust a server’s resources – its RAM, CPU, etc. as the server tries to process this flood of requests.
The result is a server unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources until the attack lasts.
Session Attack
To bypass defenses, instead of using spoofed IPs, this attack uses the real IP address of the BOTs being used to carry out an attack. The number of BOTs used to execute the attack is same as the source IP range for this attack. This attack is executed by creating a TCP-SYN session between a BOT and the target server.
This session is then stretched out until it times out by delaying the ACK packets. Session attacks try to exhaust a server’s resources through these empty sessions. That, in turn, results in a complete system shutdown or unacceptable system performance.
DNS Flood
One of the most well-known DDoS attacks, this version of UDP flood attack is application specific – DNS servers in this case. It is also one of the toughest DDoS attacks to detect and prevent. To execute, an attacker sends a large amount of spoofed DNS request packets that look no different from real requests from a very large set of source IP.
This makes it impossible for the target server to differentiate between legitimate DNS requests and DNS requests that appear to be legitimate. In trying to serve all the requests, the server exhausts its resources. The attack consumes all available bandwidth in the network until it is completely drained out.
VoIP Flood
This version of application specific UDP flood targets VoIP servers. An attacker sends a large number of spoofed VoIP request packets from a very large set of source IP. When a VoIP server is flooded with spoofed requests, it exhausts all available resources while trying to serve the valid and invalid requests.
This reboots the server or takes a toll on the server’s performance and exhausts the available bandwidth. VoIP floods can contain fixed or random source IP. Fixed source IP address attack is not easy to detect as it masks itself and looks no different from legitimate traffic.
Media Data Flood
Like VoIP flood, a server can also be attacked with media data such as audio and video. A large number of spoofed media data packets are sent by an attacker from a very large set of source IP. When a server is flooded with spoofed media data requests, it exhausts all available resources and network bandwidth to process these requests.
This attack is similar to VoIP floods in every way other than using spoofed media data packets to attacks the server. It can also be hard to detect these attacks when they are using fixed source IP as this gives them a legitimate appearance. The attack is designed to consume all available server resources and bandwidth in the network until it is completely drained out.
For further reference : https://javapipe.com/blog/ddos-types/