Company XYZ is running SNMPv1 in their network and understands that it has some flaws. They want to change the security design to implement SNMPv3 in the network. Which network threat is SNMPv3…

Question

Options

• ADDoS attack
• Bmasquerade threats
• Cbrute force dictionary attack
• Dman-in-the-middle attack

• A
  79% (44)
• B
  2% (1)
• C
  13% (7)
• D
  7% (4)

Explanation

SNMPv3 introduces User-based Security Model (USM) authentication (HMAC-MD5 or HMAC-SHA) and View-based Access Control Model (VACM) authorization, replacing SNMPv1's plaintext community strings. This authentication requirement is effective against SNMP-based DDoS amplification attacks: attackers exploit SNMPv1/v2c devices by sending spoofed GetBulk requests using the default 'public' community string, causing the devices to send large response payloads to a victim's IP address. Because SNMPv3 requires cryptographic authentication for every request, unauthenticated forged requests are silently dropped, eliminating the device as an amplification vector. Masquerade threats (B) and man-in-the-middle attacks (D) are also mitigated by SNMPv3's authentication and encryption, but those are not the primary scenario highlighted here. Brute force dictionary attacks (C) are not specifically addressed by SNMPv3 beyond replacing weak community strings with hashed credentials.

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