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Concept
IP address spoofing
Summary
In computer networking, IP address spoofing or IP spoofing is the creation of Internet Protocol (IP) packets with a false source IP address, for the purpose of impersonating another computing system.
The basic protocol for sending data over the Internet network and many other computer networks is the Internet Protocol (IP). The protocol specifies that each IP packet must have a header which contains (among other things) the IP address of the sender of the packet. The source IP address is normally the address that the packet was sent from, but the sender's address in the header can be altered, so that to the recipient it appears that the packet came from another source.
The protocol requires the receiving computer to send back a response to the source IP address therefore spoofing is mainly used when the sender can anticipate the network response or does not care about the response.
The source IP address provides only limited information about the sender. It may provide general information on the region, city and town when on the packet was sent. It does not provide information on the identity of the sender or the computer being used.
IP address spoofing involving the use of a trusted IP address can be used by network intruders to overcome network security measures, such as authentication based on IP addresses. This type of attack is most effective where trust relationships exist between machines. For example, it is common on some corporate networks to have internal systems trust each other, so that users can log in without a username or password provided they are connecting from another machine on the internal network – which would require them already being logged in. By spoofing a connection from a trusted machine, an attacker on the same network may be able to access the target machine without authentication.
IP address spoofing is most frequently used in denial-of-service attacks, where the objective is to flood the target with an overwhelming volume of traffic, and the attacker does not care about receiving responses to the attack packets.
Official source
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