Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH v12) — Question 55

Abel, a security professional, conducts penetration testing in his client organization to check for any security loopholes. He launched an attack on the DHCP servers by broadcasting forged DHCP requests and leased all the DHCP addresses available in the DHCP scope until the server could not issue any more IP addresses. This led to a DoS attack, and as a result, legitimate employees were unable to access the client’s network.
Which of the following attacks did Abel perform in the above scenario?

Answer options

• A. Rogue DHCP server attack
• B. VLAN hopping
• C. STP attack
• D. DHCP starvation

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The correct answer is D, DHCP starvation, which refers to the act of exhausting the available IP addresses in a DHCP server's scope by requesting them all, causing a denial of service for legitimate users. Option A, a Rogue DHCP server attack, involves setting up a fake DHCP server, which is not what was described here. Option B, VLAN hopping, is a method to bypass VLAN security, and Option C, STP attack, relates to manipulating the Spanning Tree Protocol, neither of which are relevant to the DHCP attack performed.