ISC2 CC Network Security Practice Question
An attacker sends a flood of SYN packets to a server, never completing the three-way handshake, exhausting the server's resources and causing it to become unresponsive. What type of attack is this?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
SYN flood
A SYN flood is a type of DoS attack that exploits the TCP three-way handshake by sending many SYN packets and not completing the handshake.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
ICMP flood
Why it's wrong here
ICMP flood uses ICMP echo requests, not SYN packets.
- ✓
SYN flood
Why this is correct
Correct. SYN flood targets TCP handshake.
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UDP flood
Why it's wrong here
UDP flood uses UDP packets, not SYN.
- ✗
ARP spoofing
Why it's wrong here
ARP spoofing associates attacker's MAC with another IP, not a flood.
Visual reference
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Security Operations Basics
Key term
Denial-of-service
A Denial-of-service (DoS) attack is an attempt to make a computer, network, or online service unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming it with fake traffic or requests.
Key term
TCP
TCP is a connection-oriented transport layer protocol that ensures reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of data between applications over IP networks.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CC exam.