CompTIA Security+ Exam Prep

Category - Communication

Which protocol does the smurf attack use to attack a network or system?
  1. TCP
  2. IP
  3. UDP
  4. ICMP
Explanation
Answer: D - A smurf attack attempts to use a broadcast ping (ICMP) on a network.

The attacker sends a broadcast message with a legal IP address. In this case, the attacking system sends a ping request to the broadcast address of the network. The request is sent to all the machines in a large network. The reply is then sent to the machine identified with the ICMP request. The result is a DoS attack that consumes the network bandwidth of the replying system while the victim system deals with the flood of ICMP traffic it receives.
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