====== Protection Against SYN Flood Attack ======
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The service can be configured via GUI. [[dpi:dpi_components:dpiui:user_guide:ssg_control_section:services#ddos_protection|Instruction]]
A SYN flood attack causes excessive resource consumption on the target system, because for every incoming SYN packet the system must allocate certain memory resources or generate a special SYN+ACK response containing a cryptographic cookie, perform session table lookups, etc. — in other words, consume significant CPU resources.
In both cases, service disruption typically occurs at a SYN flood rate of 100,000–500,000 packets per second. At the same time, even a 1 Gbps channel allows an attacker to generate traffic up to 1.5 million packets per second toward the target site.
SSG provides protection against SYN flood as follows:
- Detects an attack when the number of unconfirmed SYN requests exceeds a configured threshold
- Responds to SYN requests on behalf of the protected site (SYN PROXY mechanism)
- Establishes a TCP session with the protected site only after the client confirms the request
**Protection Parameter Settings:**
Enable protection mode (default: 0)
Allowed values:
0 — protection disabled
1 — activated automatically
2 — always enabled
syncf_protection=1
Percentage of unconfirmed client requests at which protection is automatically activated
(default: 5, can be changed online):
syncf_unconfirmed_percent=30
Threshold of SYN packets per second (without confirmation) considered normal (default: 50):
syncf_threshold=50
Protection event logging (default: 0)
Allowed values:
0 — no
1 — log protection on/off switching
syncf_trace=1
Interval in milliseconds for checking the number of SYN and confirmed SYN packets (default: 100):
syncf_check_tmout=100
Monitoring interval in seconds for responses to SYN+ACK generated by SKAT (default: 60):
syncf_tracking_packs_time=60
In the main configuration file ''/etc/dpi/fastdpi.conf'', specify the protected port numbers (default: 80, can be changed online):
syncf_ports=80:443
This setting applies globally to all protected websites.