Lesson plan

Twinge attack

In Internet-based computer-networking, a Twinge attack is a flood of false ICMP packets in an attempt to cripple a system. The attack is spoofed, that is, random fake Internet source addresses are used in the ICMP packets. This makes identification of the source of the malicious packets difficult. The idea of the attack is to either degrade the performance of the attacked computer or make it crash. The attacking program is called Twinge, but the ICMP packets have a particular signature which gives the identity away. As long as the computer is safely behind a router or a firewall, there is nothing to worry about with this attack. With this attack, the adversary intends to prevent the system from operating normally, i.e. a denial of service. Configuring upstream network devices (including firewalls and routers) to ignore ICMP packets from the public Internet will make this almost certainly not succeed.

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Article summary

In Internet-based computer-networking, a Twinge attack is a flood of false ICMP packets in an attempt to cripple a system. The attack is spoofed, that is, random fake Internet source addresses are used in the ICMP packets. This makes identification of the source of the malicious packets difficult. The idea of the attack is to either degrade the performance of the attacked computer or make it crash. The attacking program is called Twinge, but the ICMP packets have a particular signature which gives the identity away. As long as the computer is safely behind a router or a firewall, there is nothing to worry about with this attack. With this attack, the adversary intends to prevent the system from operating normally, i.e. a denial of service. Configuring upstream network devices (including firewalls and routers) to ignore ICMP packets from the public Internet will make this almost certainly not succeed.

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.