A user reports difficulty accessing certain external webpages. What might explain the situation if many SYNs have the same sequence number but different payloads?

When multiple SYN packets exhibit the same sequence number but carry different payloads, this behavior is indicative of a potential TCP injection attack. In this scenario, an attacker is exploiting the TCP three-way handshake process, attempting to establish unauthorized connections or disrupt existing ones by sending malicious SYN packets into the network.

TCP injection involves injecting crafting packets into an active TCP session in such a way that the legitimate data stream is altered or disrupted. The fact that these SYN packets share a sequence number suggests that they are attempting to synchronize with an existing TCP session, while differing payloads imply that multiple, potentially malicious, requests are aimed at the same session.

This understanding is key to diagnosing network issues caused by attacks, as it highlights the potential for compromised sessions and manipulation of data traffic. Recognizing TCP injection can help in implementing stronger security measures, such as intrusion detection systems and more comprehensive packet inspection methods, to safeguard against such threats.

In contrast, insufficient network resources would typically present as slow connections or timeouts rather than specific malicious packet characteristics. A failure of packet capture solutions could prevent visibility into the actual data but would not inherently explain the occurrence of identical sequence numbers with different payloads. Misconfiguration of web filters might result in access issues but wouldn’t specifically lead to