

SNMP amplification attack is carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to the internet enabled devices running SNMP. Like a CharGEN attack, SNMP can also be used for amplification attacks. The server will eventually exhaust its resources and go offline or reboot. When the target tries to make sense of these requests, it will fail to do so. This can be used to flood a target with UDP packets on port 19. Most internet-enabled printers, copiers etc., have this protocol enabled by default and can be used to execute a CharGEN attack. These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target. A CharGEN amplification attack is carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to internet enabled devices running CharGEN.

It is a very old protocol which can be exploited to execute amplified attacks. When the target server tries to put process these packets, it will eventually exhaust its resources and reboot. When attackers set the value of this field to zero, these packets can bypass security measures designed to scan TCP, IP, and ICMP. Packets contain IPv4 headers which carry information about which Transport Protocol is being used. This type of DDoS attack is also not easy to detect as it can easily resemble legitimate traffic. It is designed to consume all available bandwidth and resources in the network until it is completely drained out and shuts down.

Such an attack’s goal is to flood the target with ping packets until it goes offline. When a server receives a lot of spoofed Ping packets from a very large set of source IP it is being targeted by a Ping Flood attack. Ping FloodĪn evolved version of ICMP flood, this DDoS attack is also application specific. These ZERO Day DDoS vulnerabilities do not have patches or effective defensive mechanisms. This is a standard term (like John Doe) used to describe an attack that is exploiting new vulnerabilities. Websites and applications with security loopholes are also susceptible to hackers looking to steal information. The exhausted server is then unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources. Databases can also be targeted with SQL injections designed to exploit these loopholes. WordPress (we now offer the best WordPress hosting on the web) and Joomla are two examples of applications that can be targeted to exhaust a server’s resources – RAM, CPU, etc. DDoS attacks can target a specific application or a badly coded website to exploit its weakness and take down the entire server as a result.
