In
computer networking
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
, a mangled or invalid packet is a
packet
Packet may refer to:
* A small container or pouch
** Packet (container), a small single use container
** Cigarette packet
** Sugar packet
* Network packet, a formatted unit of data carried by a packet-mode computer network
* Packet radio, a fo ...
— especially
IP packet — that either lacks order or self-coherence, or contains code aimed to confuse or disrupt
computers,
firewalls,
routers, or any service present on the network.
Their usage is associated with a type of network attack called a
denial-of-service
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conne ...
(DoS) attack. They aim to destabilize the network and sometimes to reveal its available services – when network operators must restart the disabled ones.
Mangled packets can be generated by dedicated software such as
nmap
Nmap (Network Mapper) is a network scanner created by Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym ''Fyodor Vaskovich''). Nmap is used to discover hosts and services on a computer network by sending packets and analyzing the responses.
Nmap provide ...
.
, most invalid packets are easily filtered by modern
stateful firewall
In computing, a stateful firewall is a network-based firewall that individually tracks sessions of network connections traversing it. Stateful packet inspection, also referred to as dynamic packet filtering, is a security feature often used in ...
s.
References
Packets (information technology)
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