Cloud security vulnerabilities: Analysing DDoS attack methods and mitigation strategies

Cloud computing systems are intensely competitive compared with traditional computing. It is now a suitable internet method to access applications, services, and resources using various network access techniques. Cloud computing enables simple data access between cloud service providers and cloud computing clients from anywhere, any time. It can efficiently distribute and release resources, hence, it enables users to only pay for resources that are used. Although, governments, businesses, and organizations have moved all or most of their IT systems to the cloud (Kati et al. 2022); many security concerns with cloud computing prevent its adoption and use. This is because cloud computing enables access to the environment and services through the internet. Cloud Computing is more vulnerable to security problems that could result in unsatisfactory service (Bamasag et al. 2022). Figure 1 displays the benefits of cloud computing that make it more competitive compared to traditional computing.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is a popular security concern, which is a cyberattack where several infected systems or compromised virtual machines attack a single target (the cloud), creating a denial of service to cloud users of the targeted system. A zombie or bot is a computer that is being controlled by an invader whereas, a botnet is referred to as a zombie army which is a collection of hijacked computers (Cheema et al. 2022).