Title

The device must be configured to protect the network against denial of service attacks such as Ping of Death, TCP SYN floods, etc. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

A SYN-flood attack is a denial-of-service attack where the attacker sends a huge amount of please-start-a-connection packets and then nothing else. This causes the device being attacked to be overloaded with the open sessions and eventually crash. A ping sweep (also known as an ICMP sweep) is a basic network scanning technique used to determine which of a range of IP addresses map to live hosts (computers).

Check Content

Review the device configurations to determine if denial of service attacks guarded against. If the device is not configured to mitigate denial of service attacks, this is a finding.

Fix Text

If the firewall support SYN-flood or ping sweep protection then enable these features. If the firewall does not support these features, enable the security features on the router to protect the network from these attacks.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID:

Vulnerability ID: V-3156

Group Title:

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.