A penetration tester wants to attack a server, exhausting its resources and making it unavailable to legitimate users. Which of the following attacks would be best to achieve this result?

Question

Options

• AIP spoofing
• BTCP hijacking
• CPort redirection
• DSYN flooding

• A
  2% (1)
• B
  4% (2)
• C
  2% (1)
• D
  91% (43)

Explanation

SYN Flooding Explained

SYN flooding (D) is the correct answer because it exploits the TCP three-way handshake by sending massive numbers of SYN (synchronize) requests with spoofed source addresses, forcing the server to hold open half-open connections until its connection table is exhausted - making it unavailable to legitimate users. This is a classic Denial of Service (DoS) attack that directly targets resource exhaustion.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• IP spoofing (A) is a technique used to forge source addresses, often as a component of other attacks, but by itself doesn't exhaust server resources
• TCP hijacking (B) involves taking over an existing session to intercept or manipulate communication - its goal is unauthorized access, not resource exhaustion
• Port redirection (C) involves rerouting traffic from one port to another, typically used to bypass firewalls or access controls, not to overwhelm a server

Memory Tip: Think "SYN = Server Is Nailed" - the flood of SYN packets nails the server's resources by forcing it to wait for handshakes that never complete. If a question mentions exhausting resources or unavailability, immediately think DoS → SYN flood.

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