ZyXEL Communications P-2602HWLNI, User Manual, Page: 236 / 496

Chapter 14 Firewalls
P-2602HWLNI User’s Guide
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14.4.2 Types of DoS Attacks
There are four types of DoS attacks:
1 Those that exploit bugs in a TCP/IP implementation.
2 Those that exploit weaknesses in the TCP/IP specification.
3 Brute-force attacks that flood a network with useless data.
4 IP Spoofing.
5 " Ping of Death " and " Teardrop " attacks exploit bugs in the TCP/IP implementations of
various computer and host systems.
• Ping of Death uses a "ping" utility to create an IP packet that exceeds the maximum
65,536 bytes of data allowed by the IP specification. The oversize packet is then sent to an
unsuspecting system. Systems may crash, hang or reboot.
• Teardrop attack exploits weaknesses in the re-assembly of IP packet fragments. As data is
transmitted through a network, IP packets are often broken up into smaller chunks. Each
fragment looks like the original IP packet except that it contains an offset field that says,
for instance, "This fragment is carrying bytes 200 through 400 of the original (non
fragmented) IP packet." The Teardrop program creates a series of IP fragments with
overlapping offset fields. When these fragments are reassembled at the destination, some
systems will crash, hang, or reboot.
6 Weaknesses in the TCP/IP specification leave it open to " SYN Flood " and " LAND "
attacks. These attacks are executed during the handshake that initiates a communication
session between two applications.
Figure 136 Three-Way Handshake
Under normal circumstances, the application that initiates a session sends a SYN
(synchronize) packet to the receiving server. The receiver sends back an ACK
(acknowledgment) packet and its own SYN, and then the initiator responds with an ACK
(acknowledgment). After this handshake, a connection is established.
• SYN Attack floods a targeted system with a series of SYN packets. Each packet causes
the targeted system to issue a SYN-ACK response. While the targeted system waits for the
ACK that follows the SYN-ACK, it queues up all outstanding SYN-ACK responses on
what is known as a backlog queue. SYN-ACKs are moved off the queue only when an
ACK comes back or when an internal timer (which is set at relatively long intervals)
terminates the three-way handshake. Once the queue is full, the system will ignore all
incoming SYN requests, making the system unavailable for legitimate users.