Question

The DoS attack, in which the attacker establishes a large number of half-open or fully open TCP connections at the target host is ________

(a) Vulnerability attack

(b) Bandwidth flooding

(c) Connection flooding

(d) UDP flooding

I had been asked this question during an online interview.

This intriguing question originated from Network  Attacks in chapter Security & Physical Layer of Computer Network

Answer 1

Right answer is (c) Connection flooding

To elaborate: In Vulnerability attack, the attacker exploits the vulnerable control points of the network to deny access to the victims. In Bandwidth flooding, the attacker intentionally uses up all the bandwidth by flooding the victim with a deluge of packets and makes sure that the victim can’t use any bandwidth. In UDP flooding, too many UDP packets are sent by the attacker to the victim at random ports.