ITPEC FE Morning April 2019 Question 43

Sniffing Attack — capturing and analyzing unencrypted network traffic

An attacker uses a packet capture tool (e.g., Wireshark) to intercept unencrypted network transmissions and later analyzes the collected data offline to extract sensitive information.

Correct answer: d) Sniffing attack

A sniffing attack is the passive interception and inspection of network packets. The key indicators in the question are "captures network traffic" and "analyzes it offline" — both hallmarks of packet sniffing.

Why not the others:
- a) Buffer overflow attack — exploits memory allocation flaws by writing data beyond a buffer's boundary, potentially allowing arbitrary code execution. Not related to traffic capture.
- b) Phishing attack — a social engineering technique using deceptive emails or websites to trick users into revealing credentials. No network interception involved.
- c) Smurf attack — a DDoS attack that floods a target by sending ICMP echo requests to a broadcast address with the victim's spoofed IP, causing amplified traffic. Not about capturing data.

Key rule: Sniffing = passive eavesdropping on network traffic. It is especially effective against unencrypted protocols (HTTP, FTP, Telnet). The countermeasure is encryption (HTTPS, TLS, VPN).

AI-generated — may contain errors