A Smurf attack is a form of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that is performed at the network layer. The name of this attack comes from the malware DDoS.Smurf, which hackers use to execute it.
The Smurf attack has a very similar technique to ping floods, but they are a form of Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The attacker overloads computers with Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo requests or also called pings. The ICMP defines if the data will reach the assigned destination at the proper time and examines how well a network transfers information. The Smurf attack also sends ICMP pings, but yet it is defined to be more dangerous. The reason is it can utilize vulnerabilities in the Internet Protocol (IP) and the ICMP. Find out more detailed information about how the Smurf attack works!