During spanning tree attacks, an attacker sends Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) in order to induce switches to consider the attacker's own (malicious) switch as the root bridge. Network traffic is thereby routed through the switch of the attacker, enabling them to record all information sent via the switch. As a consequence, the attacker might initiate DDoS attacks and force the network to re-establish the spanning tree topology with the help of incorrect BPDUs, which might cause the network to fail.