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11.4.1. Denial of Service
Denial of service attacks leverage a vulnerability to create a loss of service, often by crashing the vulnerable process. The Stress Testing category of the Kali Linux menu contains a number of tools for this purpose.
When many people hear the term “denial of service attack”, they immediately think of resource consumption attacks that are sent out from multiple sources at once against a single target. These would be a distributed denial of services attack, or DDoS. These sorts of attacks are rarely part of a professional security assessment.
Instead, a singular denial of service attack is most often the result of an improper attempt to exploit a vulnerability. If an exploit writer releases partially functional, or proof-of-concept (PoC) code and it is used in the field, this could create a denial of service condition. Even a properly- coded exploit may only work under very specific circumstances but cause a denial of service under lesser circumstances. It may seem that the solution is to only use safe and tested exploit code, or to write your own. Even with this solution, there are no guarantees and this severely limits the assessor, causing undue constraints, which results in a lesser assessment. Instead, the key is compromise. Avoid PoC code and untested exploits in the field and always make sure a lawyer has you covered for other mishaps.
Typically, denial of service attacks are not launched intentionally. Most automated vulnerability tools will declare denial of service vulnerabilities as lower risk due to the fact that while you can remove a service from operation, that service can’t be exploited for code execution. However, it is important to remember that not all exploits are released publicly and a denial of service vulner- ability may mask a deeper, more serious threat. A code execution exploit for a known denial of service may exist but not be public. The point is, pay attention to denial of service vulnerabilities and encourage your customer to get them patched regardless of their (often low) threat rating.