IP fragmentation attack
cyberattack method based on Internet Protocol fragmentation
IP fragmentation attacks are a kind of computer security attack based on how the Internet Protocol (IP) requires data to be transmitted and processed. Specifically, it invokes IP fragmentation, a process used to partition messages (the service data unit (SDU); typically a packet) from one layer of a network into multiple smaller payloads that can fit within the lower layer's protocol data unit (PDU). Every network link has a maximum size of messages that may be transmitted, called the maximum transmission unit (MTU). If the SDU plus metadata added at the link layer exceeds the MTU, the SDU must be fragmented. IP fragmentation attacks exploit this process as an attack vector.
Part of the TCP/IP suite is the Internet Protocol (IP) which resides at the Internet Layer of this model. IP is responsible for the transmission of packets between network end points. IP includes some features which provide basic measures of fault-tolerance (time to live, checksum), traffic prioritization (type of service) and support for the fragmentation of larger packets into multiple smaller packets (ID field, fragment offset). The support for fragmentation of larger packets provides a protocol allowing routers to fragment a packet into smaller packets when the original packet is too large for the supporting datalink frames. IP fragmentation exploits (attacks) use the fragmentation protocol within IP as an attack vector.
“IP fragmentation attack” enters the record as cyberattack method based on Internet Protocol fragmentation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what fragmentation, attack and cyberattack can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “IP fragmentation attack” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.