Ethical Hacking Essentials Practice Test

What is a key characteristic of a SYN attack?

1. It targets a specific IP address

2. It creates incomplete TCP connections

3. It uses encrypted data packets

4. It does not involve ICMP packets

The correct answer is: 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.