Akamai Technologies, Inc.

Joshua Hunt

Stephen L Ludin

Philip A Lisiecki

John A Dilley

Erik L Nygren

Sudhin Mishra

Karl-Eliv J Hallin

According to certain non-limiting embodiments disclosed herein, the functionality of a server is extended with a mechanism for identifying connections with clients that have exhibited attack characteristics (for example, characteristics indicating a DoS attack), and for transitioning internal ownership of those connections such that server resources consumed by the connection are reduced, while keeping the connection open. The connection thus moves from a state of relatively high resource use to a state of relatively low server resource use. According to certain non-limiting embodiments disclosed herein, the functionality of a server is extended by enabling the server to determine that any of a client and a connection exhibits one or more attack characteristics (e.g., based on at least one of client attributes, connection attributes, and client behavior during the connection, or otherwise). As a result of the determination, the server changes its treatment of the connection.

Server with queuing layer mechanism for changing treatment of client connections

Systems and methods for reducing server resources associated with a client connection

Server with mechanism for changing treatment of client connections determined to be related to attacks

According to certain non-limiting embodiments disclosed herein, the functionality of a server is extended with a mechanism for identifying connections with clients that have exhibited attack characteristics (for example, characteristics indicating a DoS attack), and for transitioning internal ownership of those connections such that server resources consumed by the connection are reduced, while keeping the connection open. The connection thus moves from a state of relatively high resource use to a state of relatively low server resource use, and the server is able to free resources such as memory and processing cycles previously allocated to the connection. In some cases, the server maintains the connection for at least some time and uses it to keep the client occupied so that it cannot launch&#x2014;or has fewer resources to launch&#x2014;further attacks, and possibly to gather information about the attacking client.

Server with mechanism for reducing internal resources associated with a selected client connection

Growing community of inventors

Mandeville, LA, United States of America

Joshua Hunt