It is quite easy to take a TCP connection down using a RST attack, and this risk increases with applications that need long-term connections, such as VPNs, DNS zone transfers, and BGP. We’ll describe how a TCP attack can happen, and we’ll show you some simple techniques for protecting your network.

Since 1985, experts have known that the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is unsafe. Attackers can take down, corrupt, or even hijack existing TCP connections armed with just a few basic details of the connection: the source IP address, the target address, and a valid sequence number. If an attacker is able to sniff the connection, the battle is over before it begins. If the attacker can’t do so, because they don’t control a machine in the path between the client and the server, things become a little more complicated. However, people have definitely overestimated the effort required to undermine a connection, and tricks like TCP windowing make remote manipulation even easier. One of the most difficult issues, is that of guessing the right sequence numbers. This is the only way to convince the target machine that the injected IP datagrams really belong to the current TCP connection. If an attacker has the right values, there is nothing to stop him from injecting data into the existing connection, thus gaining unauthorized access to information or taking down the connection by transmitting a packet with the Reset flag (RST) set.

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It is quite easy to take a TCP connection down using a RST attack, and this risk increases with applications that need long-term connections, such as VPNs, DNS zone transfers, and BGP. We’ll describe how a TCP attack can happen, and we’ll show you some simple techniques for protecting your network.