What is Land?

A LAND attack is a DoS (Denial of Service) attack that consists of sending a special poison spoofed packet to a computer, causing it to lock up. The security flaw was actually first discovered in 1997 by someone using the alias "m3lt", and has resurfaced many years later in operating systems such as Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP SP2.

How it works

The attack involves sending a spoofed TCP SYN packet (connection initiation) with the target host's IP address and an open port as both source and destination.

The reason a LAND attack works is because it causes the machine to reply to itself continuously.

Definition: "A LAND attack involves IP packets where the source and destination address are set to address the same device."

Other land attacks have since been found in services like SNMP and Windows 88/tcp (kerberos/global services) which were caused by design flaws where the devices accepted requests on the wire appearing to be from themselves and causing replies repeatedly.

Vulnerable systems

Below is a list of vulnerable operating systems (discovered by testing on various machines):

• AIX 3.0
• AmigaOS AmiTCP 4.2 (Kickstart 3.0)
• BeOS Preview release 2 PowerMac
• BSDi 2.0 and 2.1
• Digital VMS
• FreeBSD 2.2.5-RELEASE and 3.0 (Fixed after required updates)
• HP External JetDirect Print Servers
• IBM AS/400 OS7400 3.7
• Irix 5.2 and 5.3
• Mac OS MacTCP, 7.6.1 OpenTransport 1.1.2 and 8.0
• NetApp NFS server 4.1d and 4.3
• NetBSD 1.1 to 1.3 (Fixed after required updates)
• NeXTSTEP 3.0 and 3.1
• Novell 4.11
• OpenVMS 7.1 with UCX 4.1-7
• QNX 4.24
• Rhapsody Developer Release
• SCO OpenServer 5.0.2 SMP, 5.0.4
• SCO Unixware 2.1.1 and 2.1.2
• SunOS 4.1.3 and 4.1.4
• Windows 95, NT and XP SP2, Vista

How to avoid being attacked

Most firewalls should intercept the poison packet thus protecting the host from this attack. Some operating systems released updates fixing this security hole.

External links

• Insecure.Org's original post about the attack
• Article about XP's vulnerability

---

Land may refer to:

• Land, the part of the Earth that is not covered by water (see terrestrial ecoregion)
• Landform, a feature of the land
• Landscape, the layout, appearance and character of a land area
• Land bridge, a feature exposed during periods of low sea level
  
• Land (or Bundesland) — German language loan words — Land is the constitutionally correct singular of one of the Länder, the Federal states of Germany, but colloquial (and technically incorrect) word form used for States of Austria (which are constitutionally Bundesländer).

A synonym for a region belonging to a people:

• A country, a geographical area that connotes an independent political entity
• A nation, particularly in the absence of a state or government
• Motherland, fatherland, and homeland, a person's country of affiliation, birth or ancestral origin
• Specific regions:
• As states of Germany (Länder), or, as states of Austria (Bundesländer). However, while technically (constitutionally) correct distinctions apply, both terms are in use in both countries.
• Lands of Sweden
• Lands of Denmark
• ziemia, or Lands of Poland
• Land, Norway, a region in Norway
• Land borders, a list of the borders of various nations

In law:

• Real property, real estate and ownership interests
• Estate in land, law regarding land ownership and titles
• See Torrens title for modern land ownership and titles in Australia
• Landlord, the owner of real estate which is leased
• Land claims, disputed lands
• Land rights
• Land (administrative) - an administrative type of division

In economics:

• Land (economics), a factor of production comprising all naturally occurring resources
• Land economy, the study of land usage and development
• Land grant, a gift of land made by the government for public projects
• Land reform, the redistribution of land

Other:

• Land Camera, the first "instant camera"
• Land Institute, a non-profit agricultural study center Kansas USA
• LAND, a DoS (Denial of Service) attack used in the Internet
• A landing
• Lands, the raised helical grooves in rifled gun barrels

See also

• The Land (disambiguation)
• Holy Land
• No Man's Land
• Promised land
• Land Banking