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What is a key characteristic of a SYN attack?

It targets a specific IP address

It creates incomplete TCP connections

A key characteristic of a SYN attack is that it creates incomplete TCP connections. In this type of attack, the attacker sends a large number of SYN requests to a target server, initiating the TCP handshake process but never completing it. This is done by either not responding to the server's SYN-ACK response or by spoofing the source IP addresses, which leads the server to wait for a response that never comes.

As a result, the target server becomes overwhelmed with half-open connections, consuming its resources and potentially leading to a denial of service. The server allocates resources for each connection attempt but cannot fully process them, leading to degraded performance or even a complete server crash under a heavy load of SYN requests. This characteristic is what fundamentally distinguishes SYN attacks from other types of attacks, illustrating the importance of understanding TCP connection behavior in network security.

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It uses encrypted data packets

It does not involve ICMP packets

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