IP Fragmentation Attack.

A family of network attacks that abuses IP fragmentation - overlapping, undersized, or oversized fragments - to crash hosts, evade IDS/IPS, or trigger denial of service. It belongs to the Attacks & Threats category of cybersecurity.

A family of network attacks that abuses IP fragmentation - overlapping, undersized, or oversized fragments - to crash hosts, evade IDS/IPS, or trigger denial of service.

IP fragmentation attacks exploit how the network stack reassembles IP packets larger than the MTU. Variants include Teardrop (overlapping fragments that crash buggy reassembly code), Tiny Fragment (Layer-4 headers split across fragments to bypass packet filters), Bonk and Jolt (oversized or zero-offset fragments), and IPv6 fragmentation attacks against IPv6 extension headers. Modern goals are usually IDS/IPS evasion - splitting a malicious payload so signature-based engines never see it intact - or amplification DoS through fragment caches. Defenses: keep operating systems patched (modern stacks reject suspicious fragments), drop non-initial fragments at perimeter firewalls when feasible, normalize traffic through a fragment-reassembling IPS, and disable IPv6 fragmentation where unnecessary.

Defences for IP Fragmentation Attack typically combine technical controls and operational practices, as detailed in the full definition above.

Common alternative names include: Teardrop attack, Tiny fragment attack, Fragmentation evasion.