TEWI Colloquium

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Oliver Hohlfeld | Head of the Distributed Systems group | University of Kassel
Friday, November 14, 2025, at 02:00 p.m. @ S.1.37 | University of Klagenfurt

Abstract: DDoS attacks are one of the currently most pressing cybersecurity problems. In these attacks, attackers flood their targets with unwanted traffic to exhaust the available resources, e.g., bandwidth. Over time, DDoS attack volumes became record-hitting terabit-level attacks that can even challenge the largest networks on the Internet. In this talk, we focus on exploring the types of attack vectors, including booter services that enable everyone to launch attacks, and present mitigation techniques that can be employed within IXPs.

Short CV: I’m a Professor at the University of Kassel, where I head the Distributed Systems group. Before, I was a professor at Brandenburg University of Technology and headed the Computer Networks group. Prior to that, I was at RWTH Aachen University, and before that, I was with Anja Feldmann at TU Berlin / Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories. I was a visiting scholar at the group of Paul Barford at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA.

I studied computer science at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Institut Eurecom (Sophia Antipolis, France), and Darmstadt University of Technology, and hold a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree. From 2004 to 2006, I worked at Fraunhofer IGD, where I focused on developing network architectures for telemedical applications. I obtained a Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) from TU Berlin in 2013 (Advisor: Anja Feldmann).

I am a Senior Member of the ACM.

Website: https://www.ohohlfeld.com/