ICMP flood attacks

Attack pattern

The bluntest use of ICMP is simply too much of it. A flood of echo requests, or of any ICMP a host must process, spends the target’s CPU and link on answering, and where a host applies little or no rate limiting to ICMP, the packets land where they hurt. Spoof the source and each reply is aimed at a victim; broadcast the request, the old Smurf trick, and one packet becomes a subnet’s worth of replies.

1. ICMP floods [OR]

    1.1 Direct flood attacks [OR]
    
        1.1.1 IPv6 ping6 high-volume floods
            1.1.1.1 High-rate echo request bombardment
            1.1.1.2 Large payload ping6 packets for bandwidth consumption
            1.1.1.3 Dual-stack targeting through IPv6-specific floods
            1.1.1.4 Path MTU discovery exhaustion through oversized packets
            
        1.1.2 ICMPv6 parameter problem floods
            1.1.2.1 Malformed packet generation to trigger error responses
            1.1.2.2 Header corruption attacks forcing parameter problem messages
            1.1.2.3 Extension header manipulation for error induction
            1.1.2.4 Checksum violation attacks to generate error storms
            
        1.1.3 Multicast listener report floods
            1.1.3.1 MLD report message bombardment
            1.1.3.2 Multicast group join storms for router exhaustion
            1.1.3.3 MLD query amplification attacks
            1.1.3.4 Multicast state table exhaustion through rapid group changes
            
    1.2 Spoofed-source attacks [OR]
    
        1.2.1 ICMPv6 spoofed-source floods
            1.2.1.1 Source address spoofing for attribution evasion
            1.2.1.2 Amplification through error message generation
            1.2.1.3 Reflection attack setup through spoofed requests
            1.2.1.4 Botnet coordination with spoofed source addresses
            
        1.2.2 Reflection through compromised infrastructure
            1.2.2.1 Cloud instance abuse for reflection attacks
            1.2.2.2 Compromised network device exploitation
            1.2.2.3 IoT device recruitment for distributed reflection
            1.2.2.4 Public service abuse for amplified attacks
            
        1.2.3 Botnet-based distributed flooding
            1.2.3.1 IoT botnet mobilisation for ICMP floods
            1.2.3.2 Mobile device network participation
            1.2.3.3 Cloud resource compromise for attack scaling
            1.2.3.4 Coordinated attack timing for maximum impact
            
    1.3 Protocol-specific floods [OR]
    
        1.3.1 Neighbour solicitation storms
            1.3.1.1 NS message bombardment for cache exhaustion
            1.3.1.2 Address resolution flood attacks
            1.3.1.3 DAD (Duplicate Address Detection) process abuse
            1.3.1.4 Neighbour cache table exhaustion attacks
            
        1.3.2 Router advertisement flooding
            1.3.2.1 RA message storms for host configuration disruption
            1.3.2.2 Default router list exhaustion attacks
            1.3.2.3 Prefix information flood for address assignment disruption
            1.3.2.4 Parameter spoofing through malicious RAs
            
        1.3.3 MLD report exhaustion attacks
            1.3.3.1 Multicast listener report storms
            1.3.3.2 Group membership flood attacks
            1.3.3.3 Router state table exhaustion through rapid reports
            1.3.3.4 Query interval manipulation for amplified effects
            
    1.4 Amplification techniques [OR]
    
        1.4.1 Error message amplification
            1.4.1.1 Parameter problem message amplification
            1.4.1.2 Destination unreachable message exploitation
            1.4.1.3 Time exceeded amplification attacks
            1.4.1.4 Packet too big message exploitation
            
        1.4.2 Multicast amplification
            1.4.2.1 Multicast group amplification techniques
            1.4.2.2 MLD query amplification attacks
            1.4.2.3 Multicast router reflection attacks
            1.4.2.4 Scope-based amplification exploitation
            
    1.5 Resource exhaustion attacks [OR]
    
        1.5.1 CPU exhaustion through processing demands
            1.5.1.1 Complex ICMPv6 message processing attacks
            1.5.1.2 Extension header processing exhaustion
            1.5.1.3 Checksum verification load attacks
            1.5.1.4 State table maintenance exhaustion
            
        1.5.2 Memory consumption attacks
            1.5.2.1 Buffer allocation exhaustion through packet floods
            1.5.2.2 Neighbour cache memory exhaustion
            1.5.2.3 Routing table memory depletion
            1.5.2.4 Packet reassembly buffer exhaustion
            
    1.6 Network infrastructure targeting [OR]
    
        1.6.1 Router-specific attacks
            1.6.1.1 Control plane policing bypass attacks
            1.6.1.2 Routing protocol disruption through ICMP floods
            1.6.1.3 Forwarding plane exhaustion attacks
            1.6.1.4 Management interface targeting
            
        1.6.2 Firewall and security device targeting
            1.6.2.1 State table exhaustion through ICMP variations
            1.6.2.2 Deep packet inspection bypass through floods
            1.6.2.3 Rule processing exhaustion attacks
            1.6.2.4 Logging system overload through attack volume

Simply too much of it

  • Where ICMP rate limiting is light or absent, a flood reaches the CPU largely unchecked.

  • Source addresses can be spoofed, so blocking by source fails and attribution is hard.

  • Broadcast and error-generating messages turn one request into many replies, adding amplification.

  • ICMPv6 carries more message types than ICMPv4, and each is another thing to flood.