Transport layer

From Computing and Software Wiki

Description: The transport layer's responsibilities include end-to-end message transfer capabilities independent of the underlying network, along with error control, fragmentation and flow control. End to end message transmission or connecting applications at the transport layer can be categorized as either:

  1. connection-oriented e.g. TCP
  2. connectionless e.g UDP

The transport layer can be thought of literally as a transport mechanism e.g. a vehicle whose responsibility is to make sure that its contents (passengers/goods) reach its destination safely and soundly, unless a higher or lower layer is responsible for safe delivery.

The transport layer provides this service of connecting applications together through the use of ports. Since IP provides only a best effort delivery, the transport layer is the first layer of the TCP/IP stack to offer reliability. Note that IP can run over a reliable data link protocol such as the High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC). Protocols above transport, such as RPC, also can provide reliability.

An example of an attack:

Port Scan Attack:

A Port Scan is one of the most popular reconnaissance techniques attackers use to discover services they can break into. All machines connected to a network run many services that use TCP or UDP ports. A port scan helps the attacker find which ports are available. Essentially, a port scan consists of sending a message to each port, one at a time. The kind of response received indicates whether the port is used and can therefore be probed further for weakness.

A way to defense:

Placing a NIDS on the outside of the external firewall will give an early warning advantage, as it should enable the administrator to detect the port scans that typically indicate the start of hacker activity. However, not all scans will be followed by an actual attack, as the hacker may determine that the network currently has no weaknesses that they can exploit. This could lead to large number of alerts that do not require attention. One common yet dangerous effect of this is that the staff may lose faith in the IDS and start ignoring alerts. External firewall can be used to provide alerts for the traffic that it has denied. By placing NIDS inside the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone, a part of the network that is neither "inside" nor "outside" the corporate entity) the advantage that could be taken is that the tailoring of NIDS attack signature database can be done to consider only those attacks that are applicable to the systems in the DMZ; at the same time the firewall will have blocked all other traffic.