Networking and the internet wouldn’t be what they are today without open standards. Unfortunately, those standards were written during a different time in which interoperability and communication were the priority without any real thought toward security.
Those standards are still the bedrock of today’s internet, and while security improvements have certain been made, there is still room for creative attackers to exploit and misuse those standards we rely on for a functioning internet. That doesn’t mean that we have no defense. It just means we need to more diligent in how we defend against these types of attacks.
Today, we released our latest threat research note “TCP SYN Packets: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” Written by Cyber Security Engineer Huy Nguyen, the research looks at:
- The Good: What constitutes a valid SYN packet.
- The Bad: How to identify a suspicious or malicious packet.
- The Ugly: Uncommon uses of SYN packets.
Most importantly, by better understanding the differences, defenders will be better prepared to block nuanced SYN-based attacks.
You can download and read this research note here.