With the development of technology, more and more devices can be connected to a network. However, along with all the benefits, more and more aspects of our lives get exposed to hacking attacks. Attacks on server devices usually come from outside the network, but an offense can even occur simultaneously from both directions. Protect your system against internal attacks just as against external ones! Here is the solution, Techson has to offer.
Flooding attacks against server devices typically come from outside the network. Unfortunately, this does not mean that servers cannot be attacked from the inside or from both directions simultaneously. A local attack is more dangerous in any case, as it means that the secure line has already been violated or bypassed.
This type of harmful insider activity is referred to as a man-in-the-middle attack. Vulnerability is often a result of open, and not adequately protected guest Wi-Fi, or the ports of other network devices left open.
In such cases, the best solution is to have another network device in place, to stop the offensive before it reaches the router. This is the type of efficient protection, that Techson Layer 2 managed switches offer.
Popular services, such as the CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) or the MNDP (MikroTik Neighbor Discovery Protocol) are easily compromised. Routers, which support these protocols may be at risk.
In the course of an attack the hacker floods the router with high quantities of imitated MAC addresses, and within a short period of time, the router will no longer be able to receive and process any further information, and gets overloaded as a result. Consequently, the network slows down drastically, or the device starts to continuously restart itself. If the server interface can be accessed, it will also show complete CPU and physical memory usage.
Another type of flooding is when the hacker storms the DHCP server, referred to as DHCP starvation.
The principle is the same as in the above form of attack, the device is eliminated from the network again by imitated MAC addresses. IP addresses are obtained from the DHCP server by means of imitated MAC addresses, and the server fulfils the requests by offering an IP address for each request. The hacker then rejects all of these and requests new ones, and the server tries to fulfil the requests again.
When the IP pool runs out of available addresses, the router starts to slow down. As requests continue to arrive, the device gets overloaded, and it will not even be able to provide an IP address to the clients, who need them in reality. At this point the network collapses: first internet access is lost, then all network connections get disconnected. The router will be rendered unusable, it restarts itself, but without success, as the attack does not subside. All this occurs within a fraction of a second, and with such excessive force, the attacker is set to win.
Remotely controllable Techson switches have the duly expected ability to protect routers as a digital shield, in other words, they are able to stop offenders. Accordingly, the switch is not merely a signal relaying device, it also provides active protection to the network. The respective feature is the MAC address limit. The number of MAC addresses that can be learnt and stored by the switch for each port needs to be specified. No limit is set for the port, where the router and the switch are connected. All other ports will be limited. With this simple method, both attacks can be stopped – either from the outside or from the inside – while the MAC-address table of the switch will not fill up either with falsified entries that only exert a load to the system.
Safety of equipment is often endangered by the users themselves. It is a general misconception, that the system of an average user is not at risk, leading to the omission of necessary measures. However, network safety is essential for everyone. It is not only data fishers, who can reach our equipment, but other intruders can also cause a great deal of damage in a network. The remotely controllable Techson switches and the associated advanced technology are guaranteed to stop any unwanted attack. Protection consists of not just one, but multiple devices, which realize security together.
Protect your system against internal and external attacks as well! A secure switch is a fundamental component of any system!