Which two techniques are used in a smurf attack? (Choose two.)

Which two techniques are used in a smurf attack? (Choose two.)

• session hijacking
• reflection
• amplification
• botnets
• resource exhaustion

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✅ Correct Answers: Reflection and Amplification

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🔍 Introduction: What Is a Smurf Attack?

A Smurf attack is a type of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that exploits the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) and IP broadcast addressing to overwhelm a target system with a flood of network traffic. This type of attack primarily relies on two key techniques:

• Reflection

• Amplification

Together, these techniques enable the attacker to send a relatively small amount of traffic and trigger a massive wave of responses aimed directly at the victim, effectively overloading their network resources.

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✅ Technique 1: Reflection

Reflection in cybersecurity refers to sending a request to an intermediate system in such a way that the system’s response is directed to a third-party victim rather than back to the attacker.

🔁 How Reflection Works in a Smurf Attack:

• The attacker sends an ICMP Echo Request (ping) to a network’s broadcast address.

• The source IP address is spoofed to match the victim’s IP.

• Every device on the network receives the request and sends an Echo Reply.

• All these replies are reflected back to the spoofed source IP — the victim.

This technique hides the attacker’s identity and redirects legitimate responses toward the unsuspecting victim.

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✅ Technique 2: Amplification

Amplification refers to the tactic of using small input to create a large output, maximizing the damage caused by limited attacker effort.

📈 How Amplification Works in a Smurf Attack:

• A single ICMP request is sent to a broadcast address.

• Dozens or hundreds of hosts on that subnet respond simultaneously.

• The result is a multiplication of traffic directed at the victim.

• For example, a 64-byte ping packet could result in thousands of bytes hitting the victim’s system if many devices respond.

This magnifies the impact of the attack, allowing even attackers with minimal resources to cripple large systems.

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❌ Incorrect Options Explained

❌ Session Hijacking

• Involves taking over an established session between two parties.

• Has nothing to do with broadcasting or flooding a network.

• Not used in Smurf attacks.

❌ Botnets

• A botnet is a collection of compromised computers used in modern DDoS attacks.

• While botnets can initiate Smurf-like attacks, they are not part of the core Smurf method.

• Smurf attacks can be launched from a single host using spoofing and broadcast addresses.

❌ Resource Exhaustion

• This describes the effect or goal of a Smurf attack (overwhelming resources), not a technique used to execute it.

• Reflection and amplification cause resource exhaustion.

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🧪 Real-World Application

In older networks where broadcast addresses were not filtered, Smurf attacks were extremely effective. Today, the technique is largely mitigated through:

• Disabling IP-directed broadcasts on routers

• Implementing ingress/egress filtering to prevent spoofing

• Rate-limiting ICMP traffic

However, the core techniques of reflection and amplification are still widely used in modern DDoS variants involving DNS, NTP, and other protocols.

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🧾 Summary Table

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✅ Final Answer: Reflection and Amplification

These are the two essential techniques used in a Smurf attack. Reflection redirects the response traffic to the victim, while amplification increases the volume of the attack exponentially — together creating a powerful and disruptive denial-of-service condition.