# Twinge attack

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Twinge_attack
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Twinge_attack.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinge_attack
> Source revision: 1216780307
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{Short description|Denial-of-service attack on computer systems}}
In Internet-based computer-networking, a '''Twinge attack''' is a flood of false [ICMP](/source/Internet_Control_Message_Protocol) packets in an attempt to cripple a system.<ref name=jacobs>{{Cite book |last=Jacobs |first=Stuart |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6i1cCwAAQBAJ |title=Engineering Information Security: The Application of Systems Engineering Concepts to Achieve Information Assurance |date=2015-12-01 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-119-10471-1 |language=en}}</ref>

The attack is [spoofed](/source/Spoofing_attack), that is, random fake Internet source addresses are used in the ICMP packets. This makes identification of the source of the malicious packets difficult. The idea of the attack is to either degrade the performance of the attacked computer or make it crash. The attacking program is called Twinge, but the ICMP packets have a particular signature which gives the identity away.{{clarify|date=September 2018|reason=Does the signature give away the identity of the program or the attacker?}}

As long as the computer is safely behind a [router](/source/router_(computing)) or a [firewall](/source/firewall_(computing)), there is nothing to worry about with this attack.<ref name=jacobs/> With this attack, the adversary intends to prevent the system from operating normally, i.e. a [denial of service](/source/denial_of_service).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Twinge_Attack X-Force Signature |url=https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/signature/Twinge_Attack |access-date=2022-04-10 |website=exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com}}</ref> Configuring upstream network devices (including firewalls and routers) to ignore ICMP packets from the public Internet will make this almost certainly not succeed.<ref name=jacobs/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Twinge Attack}}
Category:Denial-of-service attacks

{{Internet-stub}}
{{computer-security-stub}}

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Twinge attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinge_attack) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinge_attack?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.