Question

John's network begins to experience symptoms of slowness. Upon investigation, he realizes that the network is being bombarded with ICMP ECHO REPLY packets and believes that his organization is the victim of a Smurf attack. What principle of information security is being violated?

1) Availability
2) Integrity
3) Confidentiality
4) Denial

Answer 1

A Smurf attack violates the principle of information security called 'availability' by overwhelming a network with ICMP ECHO REPLY packets, making resources unreachable.

Step-by-step explanation:

When John's network experiences a Smurf attack, it is being overwhelmed by ICMP ECHO REPLY packets. This kind of attack exploits the network by sending a large number of packets, causing it to slow down or even shut down completely, denying service to legitimate users. The principle of information security being violated in the case of a Smurf attack is availability.

Availability is part of the CIA triad, which stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability, essential principles in information security. A Smurf attack specifically targets the availability aspect by making network resources unreachable. It does not typically violate the integrity, which would involve unauthorized alterations to data, or confidentiality, which concerns unauthorized access to information.

It is crucial that networks are equipped with proper security measures, such as ingress filters, to protect against such attacks and ensure that the security of the network is maintained, thus safeguarding the availability for users who rely on it for their daily activities and operations.