Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH v13) — Question 239

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, as Abel's actions involved exhausting all available DHCP addresses through forged requests, leading to a denial of service for legitimate users. Option A refers to a rogue DHCP server attack, which involves setting up a malicious DHCP server, but that was not the method used here. Options B and C, VLAN hopping and STP attack, are unrelated to the DHCP manipulation described in the scenario.