  We present a novel analysis method for the determination of the
neutrino-nucleon Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) cross section in the TeV - PeV
energy range utilizing neutrino absorption by the Earth. We analyze five years
of data collected with the complete IceCube detector from May 2011 to May 2016.
This analysis focuses on electromagnetic and hadronic showers (cascades) mainly
induced by electron and tau neutrinos. The applied event selection features
high background rejection (< 10% background contamination below 60 TeV,
background free above 60 TeV) of atmospheric muons and high signal efficiency
(~ 80%). The final neutrino sample consists of 4808 events, with 402 events
above 10 TeV reconstructed energy. An unfolding method was applied to enable
the mapping from reconstructed cascade parameters such as energy and zenith to
true neutrino variables. The analysis was performed assuming isotropic
astrophysical neutrino flux, in seven energy bins, and in two zenith bins
("down-going" from the south-hemisphere and "up-going" from the
north-hemisphere). The ratio of down-going to up-going events (which are
absorbed by the Earth at high energies) is sensitive to the neutrino-nucleon
cross section but insensitive to the astrophysical neutrino flux uncertainties.
