Question

An engineer learns a new security threat mitigation technique. The technique maps an IP address to a non-existent host, and is useful in stopping denial of service attacks. Traffic heading to these IPs can be captured for analysis or discarded. Considering the given strategies, which does this technique relate to? Select all that apply.
A. Black hole
B. Sinkhole
C. Forward proxying
D. Reverse proxying

Answer 1

A. In network architecture, a black hole drops traffic before it reaches its intended destination, and without alerting the source. A simple example is traffic sent to an IP address that an admin mapped to a non-existent host.
B. A sinkhole is similar to configuring a black hole, and often used interchangeably. With sinkholing however, an admin usually retains some ability to analyze and forward the captured traffic.