TCP SYN flood (a.k.a. SYN flood) is a type of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that exploits part of the normal TCP three-way handshake to consume resources on the targeted server and render it unresponsive.

Essentially, with SYN flood DDoS, the offender sends TCP connection requests faster than the targeted machine can process them, causing network saturation.

Attack description

When a client and server establish a normal TCP “three-way handshake,” the exchange looks like this:

1. Client requests connection by sending SYN (synchronize) message to the server.
2. Server acknowledges by sending SYN-ACK (synchronize-acknowledge) message back to the client.
3. Client responds with an ACK (acknowledge) message, and the connection is established.

In a SYN flood attack, the attacker sends repeated SYN packets to every port on the targeted server, often using a fake IP address. The server, unaware of the attack, receives multiple, apparently legitimate requests to establish communication. It responds to each attempt with a SYN-ACK packet from each open port.

The malicious client either does not send the expected ACK, or—if the IP address is spoofed—never receives the SYN-ACK in the first place. Either way, the server under attack will wait for acknowledgement of its SYN-ACK packet for some time.

 

 

During this time, the server cannot close down the connection by sending an RST packet, and the connection stays open. Before the connection can time out, another SYN packet will arrive. This leaves an increasingly large number of connections half-open – and indeed SYN flood attacks are also referred to as “half-open” attacks. Eventually, as the server’s connection overflow tables fill, service to legitimate clients will be denied, and the server may even malfunction or crash.

While the “classic” SYN flood described above tries to exhaust network ports, SYN packets can also be used in DDoS attacks that try to clog your pipes with fake packets to achieve network saturation. The type of packet is not important. Still, SYN packets are often used because they are the least likely to be rejected by default.