Category:Attack Categorisation By Number Of Involved Parties

In the simplest case one attacker at an arbitrary location executes an attack against a single web service. In more complex scenarios one attacker may control various parties, who then on behalf of the attacker unknowingly and successfully execute the attack. The classic example of this scenario is the distributed DOS (DDOS) attack, where a botnet controlled by an attacker attacks a web service. The following coding schema was therefore developed to describe the different scenarios that can arise.

The code always has the form X - Y - Z:

• X = number of attackers
• Y = number of involved intermediaries/other web services
• Z = number of attacked web services

X, Y and Z can take the values:

• 0 = no party involved
• 1 = one party involved
• 2+ = two or more parties involved

Example code: 1 - 0 - 1, which equals “one attacker, no involved intermediary, one targeted web service”