Timestamps and sequence numbers act as countermeasures against which of the following types of attacks?
A.
Smurf
B.
DoS
C.
Vishing
D.
Replay
Explanation:
A replay attack (also known as playback attack) is a form of network attack in which a valid data transmission is maliciously or fraudulently repeated or delayed.
This is carried out either by the originator or by an adversary who intercepts the data and retransmits it, possibly as part of a masquerade attack by IP packet
substitution (such as stream cipher attack).
For example: Suppose Alice wants to prove her identity to Bob. Bob requests her password as proof of identity, which Alice dutifully provides (possibly after some
transformation like a hash function); meanwhile, Eve is eavesdropping on the conversation and keeps the password (or the hash). After the interchange is over,
Eve (posing as Alice) connects to Bob; when asked for a proof of identity, Eve sends Alice’s password (or hash) read from the last session, which Bob accepts thus
granting access to Eve.
Countermeasures: A way to avoid replay attacks is by using session tokens: Bob sends a one- time token to Alice, which Alice uses to transform the password and
send the result to Bob (e.g. computing a hash function of the session token appended to the password). On his side Bob performs the same computation; if and
only if both values match, the login is successful. Now suppose Eve has captured this value and tries to use it on another session; Bob sends a different session
token, and when Eve replies with the captured value it will be different from Bob’s computation.
Session tokens should be chosen by a (pseudo-) random process. Otherwise Eve may be able to pose as Bob, presenting some predicted future token, and
convince Alice to use that token in her transformation. Eve can then replay her reply at a later time (when the previously predicted token is actually presented by
Bob), and Bob will accept the authentication. One-time passwords are similar to session tokens in that the password expires after it has been used or after a very
short amount of time. They can be used to authenticate individual transactions in addition to sessions. The technique has been widely implemented in personal
online banking systems.
Bob can also send nonces but should then include a message authentication code (MAC), which Alice should check.
Timestamping is another way of preventing a replay attack. Synchronization should be achieved using a secure protocol. For example Bob periodically broadcasts
the time on his clock together with a MAC. When Alice wants to send Bob a message, she includes her best estimate of the time on his clock in her message,
which is also authenticated. Bob only accepts messages for which the timestamp is within a reasonable tolerance. The advantage of this scheme is that Bob does
not need to generate (pseudo-) random numbers, with the trade-off being that replay attacks, if they are performed quickly enough i.e. within that ‘reasonable’ limit,
could succeed.
Incorrect Answers:
A: 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. Timestamps are not used to defend against this type of attack. Therefore, this answer is incorrect.
B: DoS, short for denial-of-service attack, a type of attack on a network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many
DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCP/IP protocols. For all known DoS attacks, there are software fixes that
system administrators can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like viruses, new DoS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by hackers.
Timestamps are not used to defend against this type of attack. Therefore, this answer is incorrect.C: Vishing is the telephone equivalent of phishing. Vishing is the act of using the telephone in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that
will be used for identity theft. The scammer usually pretends to be a legitimate business, and fools the victim into thinking he or she will profit. Timestamps are not
used to defend against this type of attack.
Therefore, this answer is incorrect.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/smurf.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/DoS_attack.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/vishing.html