1.6 The impact associated with types of vulnerabilities

Question 1

Race conditions

Answer 1

Occur when the outcome from execution processes is directly dependent on the order and timing of certain events/multiple threads, and those events fail to execute in the order or timing intended by the developer.

Question 2

End-of-life systems

Answer 2

System that is no longer supported by its developer or vendor, no longer recieve security updates and so represent a critical vulnerability.

Question 3

Embedded systems

Answer 3

A complete computer system that is designed to perform a specific dedicated function. ex. a microcontroller in a medical drip or components in a control sys managing a water treatment plant.

Question 4

Lack of vendor support

Answer 4

No security life-cycle management

Question 5

Misconfiguration/weak configuration

Answer 5

Ex. a system that may leave admin access protected with a default account or password that is publicly available.
Ex. Leaving sensitive ports open to the Internet.

Question 6

Resource exhaustion

Answer 6

Overloading a service by using CPU, system RAM, disk space, or network bandwidth.

Question 7

Improperly configured accounts

Answer 7

When an account is either to restricted resulting in tons of support calls. Or the account is granted too many privileges, weakening the security of the system.

Question 8

Weak cipher suites and implementations

Answer 8

A cipher that cannot use long keys. Vulnerable to brute force attacks

Question 9

Memory/buffer vulnerability

Answer 9

Allows an attacker to run arbitrary code on a system.

Question 10

Memory leak

Answer 10

When a program doesn’t release unused memory. Could lead to a system crash due to lack of memory.

Question 11

Integer overflow

Answer 11

An attack that causes the target software to calculate a value that exceeds the bounds of the integer data type.

Question 12

Buffer overflow

Answer 12

An attacker passes data that deliberately overfills the buffer (an area of memory) that the application reserves to store the expected data.

Question 13

Pointer dereference

Answer 13

Accessing a pointer/memory address.

Question 14

DLL injection

Answer 14

A software vulnerability that occurs when a Windows-based application attempts to force another running application to load a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) in memory that could cause the victim application to experience instability or leak sensitive information.

Question 15

System sprawl/undocumented assets

Answer 15

These undocumented systems represent an exploitable vulnerability.

Question 16

Architecture/design weakness

Answer 16

Examples:

1) “pinch points” relying on a single hardware server or network channel.
2) Complex dependencies: services that require many different systems to be available.
3) Availability of confidentiality and integrity.
4) Lack of documentation and change control.
5) Overdependence on perimeter security: network architecture is “flat” (meaning any host can contact any other host) gives the attacker freedom of movement.

Question 17

Improper certificate and key management

Answer 17

1) if the attacker obtains the private key, confidentiality is compromised.
2) if the attacker gains the ability to create ‘valid’ signed certificates, then the attacker will be trusted.
3) if the key for encryption is destroyed any data encrypted using that key will be inaccessible.

Question 18

Improper input validation

Answer 18

An attack that passes invalid data to the application, and because the input handling is inadequate, it causes the app or OS to behave in unexpected ways. Two general vulnerabilities are the following:

Overflow—the attacker submits input that is larger than the variables assigned by the application to store it can cope with.

Injection—the attacker embeds code within the input or appends code to it that executes when the server processes the submission.