DHCP Starvation Attack
DHCP starvation attack is a type of network-based attack in which an attacker floods a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server with a large number of bogus requests in an attempt to exhaust the server’s available IP addresses. In simple words, imagine you are planning a birthday party and you have a limited number of chairs to place for your guests, but suddenly some strangers come in and pretend as your guests and ask for chairs to sit on, this way your actual guests are left with no seats to sit on.
DHCP is responsible for assigning unique IP addresses to devices on a network. DHCP starvation attacks compromise this process by consuming all the available IP addresses in a DHCP server and preventing legitimate devices from obtaining an IP address. This can lead to network downtime or make it difficult for network administrators to manage the network efficiently.
The attack can be launched using specialized software tools that generate a high volume of DHCP requests from a single host. As a result, the server will not be able to keep up with the number of requests, and will eventually become exhausted. To mitigate this attack, network administrators can implement measures such as DHCP snooping and port security, which help in detecting and preventing such attacks by limiting the number of DHCP requests a host can generate.
Overall, DHCP starvation attack is a form of cyberattack that attempts to disrupt network communication by exhausting DHCP server resources.