IP fragmentation attack

Article summary

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.…

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