CompTIA Security+ Question L-82

Which of the following BEST describes the type of attack that is occurring?

A. Smurf Attack
B. Man in the middle
C. Backdoor
D. Replay
E. Spear Phishing
F. Xmas Attack
G. Blue Jacking
H. Ping of Death

Answer: A

Explanation:
The exhibit shows that all the computers on the network are being ‘pinged’. This indicates that the ping request was sent to the network broadcast address. We can also see that all the replies were received by one (probably with a spoofed address) host on the network. This is typical of a smurf attack.

A smurf attack is a type of network security breach in which a network connected to the Internet is swamped with replies to ICMP echo (PING) requests. A smurf attacker sends PING requests to an Internet broadcast address. These are special addresses that broadcast all received messages to the hosts connected to the subnet. Each broadcast address can support up to 255 hosts, so a single PING request can be multiplied 255 times. The return address of the request itself is spoofed to be the address of the attacker’s victim. All the hosts receiving the PING request reply to this victim’s address instead of the real sender’s address. A single attacker sending hundreds or thousands of these PING messages per second can fill the victim’s T-1 (or even T-3) line with ping replies, bring the entire Internet service to its knees. Smurfing falls under the general category of Denial of Service attacks — security attacks that don’t try to steal information, but instead attempt to disable a computer or network.

CompTIA Security+ Question L-35

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) receives an anonymous threatening message that says “beware of the 1st of the year”. The CIO suspects the message may be from a former disgruntled employee planning an attack.
Which of the following should the CIO be concerned with?

A. Smurf Attack
B. Trojan
C. Logic bomb
D. Virus

Answer: C

Explanation:
A logic bomb is a piece of code intentionally inserted into a software system that will set off a malicious function when specified conditions are met. For example, a programmer may hide a piece of code that starts deleting files should they ever be terminated from the company. Software that is inherently malicious, such as viruses and worms, often contain logic bombs that execute a certain payload at a pre-defined time or when some other condition is met. This technique can be used by a virus or worm to gain momentum and spread before being noticed. Some viruses attack their host systems on specific dates, such as Friday the 13th or April Fool’s Day. Trojans that activate on certain dates are often called “time bombs”. To be considered a logic bomb, the payload should be unwanted and unknown to the user of the software. As an example, trial programs with code that disables certain functionality after a set time are not normally regarded as logic bombs.

CompTIA Security+ Question I-80

Which of the following will help prevent smurf attacks?

A. Allowing necessary UDP packets in and out of the network
B. Disabling directed broadcast on border routers
C. Disabling unused services on the gateway firewall
D. Flash the BIOS with the latest firmware

Answer: B

Explanation:
A smurf attack involves sending PING requests to a broadcast address. Therefore, we can prevent smurf attacks by blocking broadcast packets on our external routers. A smurf attack is a type of network security breach in which a network connected to the Internet is swamped with replies to ICMP echo (PING) requests. A smurf attacker sends PING requests to an Internet broadcast address. These are special addresses that broadcast all received messages to the hosts connected to the subnet. Each broadcast address can support up to 255 hosts, so a single PING request can be multiplied 255 times. The return address of the request itself is spoofed to be the address of the attacker’s victim. All the hosts receiving the PING request reply to this victim’s address instead of the real sender’s address. A single attacker sending hundreds or thousands of these PING messages per second can fill the victim’s T-1 (or even T-3) line with ping replies, bring the entire Internet service to its knees. Smurfing falls under the general category of Denial of Service attacks — security attacks that don’t try to steal information, but instead attempt to disable a computer or network.

CompTIA Security+ Question F-88

An administrator is instructed to disable IP-directed broadcasts on all routers in an organization. Which of the following attacks does this prevent?

A. Pharming
B. Smurf
C. Replay
D. Xmas

Answer: B

Explanation:
A smurf attack is a type of network security breach in which a network connected to the Internet is swamped with replies to ICMP echo (PING) requests. A smurf attacker sends PING requests to an Internet broadcast address. These are special addresses that broadcast all received messages to the hosts connected to the subnet. Each broadcast address can support up to 255 hosts, so a single PING request can be multiplied 255 times. The return address of the request itself is spoofed to be the address of the attacker’s victim. All the hosts receiving the PING request reply to this victim’s address instead of the real sender’s address. A single attacker sending hundreds or thousands of these PING messages per second can fill the victim’s Internet connection with ping replies, bringing their entire Internet service to its knees. Smurfing falls under the general category of Denial of Service attacks — security attacks that don’t try to steal information, but instead attempt to disable a computer or network.

By disabling IP-directed broadcasts on all routers, we can prevent the smurf attack by blocking the ping requests to broadcast addresses.

CompTIA Security+ Question E-52

Which of the following attacks impact the availability of a system? (Select TWO).

A. Smurf
B. Phishing
C. Spim
D. DDoS
E. Spoofing

Answer: A,D

Explanation:
A smurf attack is a type of network security breach in which a network connected to the Internet is swamped with replies to ICMP echo (PING) requests. A smurf attacker sends PING requests to an Internet broadcast address. These are special addresses that broadcast all received messages to the hosts connected to the subnet. Each broadcast address can support up to 255 hosts, so a single PING request can be multiplied 255 times. The return address of the request itself is spoofed to be the address of the attacker’s victim. All the hosts receiving the PING request reply to this victim’s address instead of the real sender’s address. A single attacker sending hundreds or thousands of these PING messages per second can fill the victim’s T-1 (or even T-3) line with ping replies, bring the entire Internet service to its knees. Smurfing falls under the general category of Denial of Service attacks — security attacks that don’t try to steal information, but instead attempt to disable a computer or network.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attack from several different computers targeting a single computer. One common method of attack involves saturating the target machine with external communications requests, so much so that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered essentially unavailable. Such attacks usually lead to a server overload. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers. Such an attack is often the result of multiple compromised systems (for example a botnet) flooding the targeted system with traffic. When a server is overloaded with connections, new connections can no longer be accepted. The major advantages to an attacker of using a distributed denial-of-service attack are that multiple machines can generate more attack traffic than one machine, multiple attack machines are harder to turn off than one attack machine, and that the behavior of each attack machine can be stealthier, making it harder to track and shut down. These attacker advantages cause challenges for defense mechanisms. For example, merely purchasing more incoming bandwidth than the current volume of the attack might not help, because the attacker might be able to simply add more attack machines. This after all will end up completely crashing a website for periods of time.

CompTIA Security+ Question B-60

An attacker crafts a message that appears to be from a trusted source, but in reality it redirects the recipient to a malicious site where information is harvested. The message is narrowly tailored so it is effective on only a small number of victims. This describes which of the following?

A. Spear phishing
B. Phishing
C. Smurf attack
D. Vishing

Answer: A

Explanation:
Spear phishing is an e-mail spoofing fraud attempt that targets a specific organization, seeking unauthorized access to confidential data. As with the e-mail messages used in regular phishing expeditions, spear phishing messages appear to come from a trusted source. Phishing messages usually appear to come from a large and well-known company or Web site with a broad membership base, such as eBay or PayPal. In the case of spear phishing, however, the apparent source of the e-mail is likely to be an individual within the recipient’s own company and generally someone in a position of authority.

CompTIA Security+ Simulation 13

Which of the following BEST describes the type of attack that is occurring?
A. Smurf Attack
B. Man in the middle
C. Backdoor
D. Replay
E. Spear Phishing
F. Xmas Attack
G. Blue Jacking
H. Ping of Death



Correct Answer: A

The exhibit shows that all the computers on the network are being ‘pinged’. This indicates that the ping request was sent to the network broadcast address. We can also see that all the replies were received by one (probably with a spoofed address) host on the network. This is typical of a smurf attack.

A smurf attack is a type of network security breach in which a network connected to the Internet is swamped with replies to ICMP echo (PING) requests. A smurf attacker sends PING requests to an Internet broadcast address. These are special addresses that broadcast all received messages to the hosts connected to the subnet. Each broadcast address can support up to 255 hosts, so a single PING request can be multiplied 255 times. The return address of the request itself is spoofed to be the address of the attacker’s victim. All the hosts receiving the PING request reply to this victim’s address instead of the real sender’s address. A single attacker sending hundreds or thousands of these PING messages per second can fill the victim’s T-1 (or even T-3) line with ping replies, bring the entire Internet service to its knees.

Smurfing falls under the general category of Denial of Service attacks — security attacks that don’t try to steal information, but instead attempt to disable a computer or network.

CompTIA Network+ Question C-5

Packet analysis reveals multiple GET and POST requests from an internal host to a URL without any response from the server. Which of the following is the BEST explanation that describes this scenario?

A. Compromised system
B. Smurf attack
C. SQL injection attack
D. Man-in-the-middle

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:
As the extra unexplainable traffic comes from an internal host on your network we can assume that this host has been compromised.
If your system has been compromised, somebody is probably using your machine–possibly to scan and find other machines to compromise

CompTIA Network+ Question B-92

An attacker has connected to an unused VoIP phone port to gain unauthorized access to a network. This is an example of which of the following attacks?

A. Smurf attack
B. VLAN hopping
C. Bluesnarfing
D. Spear phishing

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:
The VoIP phone port can be used to attack a VLAN on the local network.
VLAN hopping is a computer security exploit, a method of attacking networked resources on a Virtual LAN (VLAN). The basic concept behind all VLAN hopping attacks is for an attacking host on a VLAN to gain access to traffic on other VLANs that would normally not be accessible.

CompTIA Network+ Question B-67

A network security technician observes multiple attempts to scan network hosts and devices. All the attempts originate from a single host on the network. Which of the following threats is MOST likely involved?

A. Smurf attack
B. Rogue AP
C. Compromised system
D. Unintentional DoS

Correct Answer: C