journal article·2025-10-25Open access

Mitigating Crossfire Attacks via Topology Spoofing Based on ENRNN-MTD

Dexian Chang, Xiaobing Zhang, Jiajia Sun, Chen Fang

Applied Sciences· Volume 15· Issue 21

Abstract

Crossfire attacks disrupt network services by targeting critical links of server groups, causing traffic congestion and server failures that prevent legitimate users from accessing services. To counter this threat, this study proposes a novel topology spoofing defense mechanism based on a sequence-based Graph Neural Network–Moving Target Defense (ENRNN-MTD). During the reconnaissance phase, the method employs a GNN to generate multiple random and diverse virtual topologies, which are mapped to various external hosts. This obscures the real internal network structure and complicates the attacker’s ability to accurately identify it. In the attack phase, an IP random-hopping mechanism using a chaotic sequence is introduced to conceal node information and increase the cost of launching attacks, thereby enhancing the protection of critical services. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to existing defense mechanisms, the proposed approach exhibits significant advantages in terms of deception topology randomness, defensive effectiveness, and system load management.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Software-Defined Networks and 5G · Network Security and Intrusion Detection · Advanced Graph Neural Networks

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

School of Cryptography Engineering, Information Engineering University, Zhengzhou 450001, China

Henan Key Laboratory of Information Security, Zhengzhou 450001, China

Funding

Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF · Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province

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