1.4.1 & 1.4.2 - Threats and Preventing Vulnerabilities

Question 1

Malware is a piece of software created to…

Answer 1

Cause harm or damage to a computer system. Examples of malware include Spyware, Ransomware, Trojans and Viruses

Question 2

Social engineering is…

Answer 2

Using social methods (emails and social media) to reveal personal or company information

Question 3

A brute force attack is…

Answer 3

A trail and error process that uses many passwords to try to guess a password to a computer system. Usually done with a program

Question 4

A denial of service attack is…

Answer 4

Preventing legitimate users from accessing a service. This is done by a computer sending thousands of requests so that every data packet has to be processed and the server eventually crashes

Question 5

Data interception is…

Answer 5

Theft by copying data sent over a network

Question 6

An SQL injection is…

Answer 6

A command that reveals database details

Question 7

Penetration testing is…

Answer 7

Testing a systems vulnerabilities and defences in a secure, planned way often using “ethical hackers”
They then give advice on how to improve the secuirt to make it harder for real attacks

Question 8

How does anti-malware software work to protect the computer

Answer 8

• It has a database of malware defenitions
• Every file that is downloaded (or incoming email) is checked to see if anything matches the database
• If there is a match, the malware is quarantined and removed
• It also does full system scans to see if there are any existing infected files

Question 9

A firewall is …

Answer 9

Used to prevent hackers from gaining unauthorised access into a system, by monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic. It only allows traffic from trusted sources

Question 10

What are user access levels and their benefits

Answer 10

• Only users with certain credentials can access certain things on the network (based on their needs for work)
• This means if one account is compromised, the data a hacker can access is limited reducing the effect of brute froce attacks

Question 11

A password is…

Answer 11

Used to authenticate the user

Question 12

What is encryption

Answer 12

Scrambling data using cipher software and has to be read using a key so only the intended recipient and sender can read it
This means if the data is intercepted, an unauthorised user can read the data, but not understand it

Question 13

Physical security is…

Answer 13

The use of locking doors, CCTV, biometrics etc. to deter thieves from taking hardware