Synonyms and Antonyms of fragmentation (frăg&stress;mən-tāshən, -mĕn-)

Means that whatever had been whole now exists in parts—unattached and isolated from each other. Means that whatever had been whole now exists in parts—unattached and isolated from each other. Network traffic is typically fragmented into smaller pieces to fit into the physical constraints of the underlying network architecture. Though a completely normal behavior found in a network, fragmentation can be exploited by crackers. Because simpler firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) look at only one packet of data at a time to decide whether to block data and alert system administrators or to let the packet pass, certain firewall and IDS rules do not “trigger” when data is split over several packets; thus, potentially dangerous traffic can get through the barriers. More modern versions of these protective systems reassemble the data before the rule set is applied. Accepting this fact, an additional problem arises from the reassembly of packets in the security devices; namely, different operating systems use different reassembly strategies. Crackers can exploit the knowledge about these differing algorithms by crafting packets so that the protective devices reassemble in such a way as to make the system vulnerable to attack. In the computer operating system software domain, there are two types of fragmentation: file fragmentation and free-space fragmentation. The former refers to computer disk files broken into scattered parts, whereas the latter indicates that the disk’s empty space is in scattered parts instead of existing as a whole in one large, empty space. File fragmentation causes difficulty in users’ ability to access data stored on computer disk files, whereas free-space fragmentation causes difficulty in users’ ability to create new data files or add to existing ones. Actually, fragmentation interferes with any users’ computing tasks because it slows down the computer. Executive.com. Introduction: Fragmentation. [Online, 2004.] Executive.com Website. http://www.executive.com/fragbook/intro.htm#frag_def.