What Is SYN Attack?

When an SYN attack hits, you'll know it. If your internet connection slows down or you can't connect to specific sites, there's a chance that an SYN attack is attacking you. SYN is "Synchronization," a type of request used in communication protocols like TCP/IP. It's also the most common way for hackers to perform DoS attacks when they try to overwhelm your system with traffic so it can't respond to legitimate requests. When someone initiates an SYN attack, they send an overwhelming number of requests to your server simultaneously. These requests cause your system to overload and become unresponsive until the attacker stops sending them (usually because they've maxed out their connection queue). The easiest way to describe how an SYN attack works are to think about a grocer with a ticket to serve customers at the meat counter. Any customer is expected to pull a different, numbered ticket from the dispenser so the grocer can service the customers in an orderly fashion. Similarly, when you send a request for something on the Internet, you must ensure it's not being used by someone else. For two or more computers to communicate, they must agree on how they will share. When you send something over the Internet - like a web page or an email message - it's called a packet. Before your computer can send any particular parcel of information, it has to tell all of the other computers on the network what information it wants to be sent and how quickly. It wants it sent back so that all other computers know how long to wait before sending their packets back. your computer sends out an "acknowledgment" message every time it receives one, saying, "I got that." So when you send something over the Internet, your computer sends an acknowledgment stating, "Yes! I got that!"