Abel, a security professional, conducts penetration testing in his client organization to check for any security loopholes. He launched an attack on the DHCP servers by broadcasting forged DHCP…

Question

Options

• ARogue DHCP server attack
• BVLAN hopping
• CSTP attack
• DDHCP starvation

• A
  4% (2)
• B
  2% (1)
• D
  93% (43)

Explanation

DHCP Starvation is the correct answer because Abel deliberately flooded the DHCP server with forged requests to exhaust all available IP addresses in the DHCP scope, leaving no addresses for legitimate users - this is the textbook definition of a DHCP starvation attack, which results in a Denial of Service (DoS).

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A (Rogue DHCP Server): This involves an attacker setting up a fake DHCP server to hand out malicious IP configurations, not exhausting legitimate server addresses.
• B (VLAN Hopping): This attack exploits switch configurations to gain access to traffic on different VLANs - completely unrelated to DHCP.
• C (STP Attack): Spanning Tree Protocol attacks manipulate network topology by targeting root bridge elections, not IP address allocation.

Memory Tip: Think of DHCP starvation as "starving" the server of available IP addresses - just like starving means having nothing left to give, the DHCP server is left with no addresses to assign to legitimate users. The key phrase to watch for in exam questions is "leased all available addresses" or "exhausted the DHCP scope," which always points to starvation.

No community discussion yet for this question.