CISSP Practice Exam 2026 – Complete Prep Guide

A LAND attack is a specific type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack that utilizes spoofed SYN packets. In this attack, the attacker sends a SYN packet with a source IP address that matches the target's IP address. This creates confusion for the target system because it tries to establish a connection with itself, leading to resource exhaustion and potentially causing the system to crash or become unresponsive.

The unique characteristic of the LAND attack is the use of the same IP for both the source and destination, which can make it particularly challenging for network devices to handle, resulting in a significant denial of service for the intended target. This method exploits the TCP three-way handshake process by not allowing the target to complete the handshake successfully, thus consuming its resources without allowing legitimate connections.

Understanding this attack is crucial for network security professionals, as it highlights the importance of implementing measures to detect and mitigate such spoofing attacks to maintain service availability and integrity on networks.