As a Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator, you are analyzing a TCP dump of network traffic during a suspected breach. During the investigation, you noticed that the “Packets dropped by kernel” count was unusually high. Given that the network has a high load, what could be the most probable reason for this situation?
When the 'Packets dropped by kernel' count is unusually high, this typically indicates that the operating system's buffer space allocated for packet capture is insufficient. This shortage of buffer space causes the OS to drop packets. In a high-load network situation, the buffer might fill up quickly if it isn't adequately sized, leading to packet drops.
Packets “dropped by kernel” is the number of packets that were dropped due to a lack of buffer space, by the packet capture mechanism in the OS running Tcpdump, if the OS reports that information to applications; if the information is not reported, it will be reported as 0