Which term describes attempts to cause users on a network to flood each other with data, making the traffic appear as if everyone is attacking everyone and masking the hacker's identity?

Which term describes attempts to cause users on a network to flood each other with data, making the traffic appear as if everyone is attacking everyone and masking the hacker's identity?

• A. Smurf attacks
• B. Ping flood
• C. DDoS
• D. SYN flood

Answer: (A)

Smurf attacks rely on spoofed addresses and broadcast amplification to flood a target while keeping the attacker hidden. The attacker sends ICMP echo requests to the broadcast address of a network, but sets the source IP to the victim’s address. All devices on that broadcast network reply to the spoofed address, directing a flood of responses at the victim. Because the responses come from many hosts and the traffic appears to originate at the victim’s address, it can look like a broad attack from multiple machines, masking who actually sent the requests. This specific pattern uses the network’s broadcast mechanism to amplify the traffic and conceal the attacker’s identity. This differs from a simple ping flood, which is a direct flood from the attacker to the target, or from a SYN flood, which targets TCP connection setup, and from DDoS in general, which is a multi-source flood but not necessarily leveraging broadcast amplification and spoofed addresses. To defend, disable directed broadcasts, implement anti-spoofing measures, and apply filtering to block spoofed traffic.

Smurf attacks rely on spoofed addresses and broadcast amplification to flood a target while keeping the attacker hidden. The attacker sends ICMP echo requests to the broadcast address of a network, but sets the source IP to the victim’s address. All devices on that broadcast network reply to the spoofed address, directing a flood of responses at the victim. Because the responses come from many hosts and the traffic appears to originate at the victim’s address, it can look like a broad attack from multiple machines, masking who actually sent the requests. This specific pattern uses the network’s broadcast mechanism to amplify the traffic and conceal the attacker’s identity.

This differs from a simple ping flood, which is a direct flood from the attacker to the target, or from a SYN flood, which targets TCP connection setup, and from DDoS in general, which is a multi-source flood but not necessarily leveraging broadcast amplification and spoofed addresses. To defend, disable directed broadcasts, implement anti-spoofing measures, and apply filtering to block spoofed traffic.