Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities Flashcards
What is the purpose of Phishing?
Phishing is a combination of social engineering and spoofing, where the attacker sets up a spoof website to imitate a trusted one.
For Example:
A spoofed email ostensibly from myuniversity.edu is mass-distributed to as many faculty members as possible. The email claims that the user’s password is about to expire. Instructions are given to go to myuniversity.edu/renewal to renew their password within 24 hours.
What is the purpose of SMiShing?
SMiShing is a phishing technique that uses simple message service (SMS) text communications as the attack vector. The text message may include a link to a fake website asking a user to log in.
What is Vishing?
Vishing and phishing have the same aim: to gain sensitive information from users that cybercriminals can use for monetary gain, identity theft, or account takeover.
What is the purpose of Spam?
Spam email or bulk unsolicited messages, usually sent in the form of email advertisements or other appealing material, may deliver malware or lure a user to another form of attack.
What is Spam over Instant Messaging (SPIM)?
SPIM is spam (or mass unsolicited messages) but over instant messaging or Internet messaging services, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, or Telegram.
What is Spear Phishing?
Spear phishing refers to a phishing scam where the attacker has some information that makes an individual target more likely to be fooled by the attack. The attacker might know the details that help convince the target that the communication is genuine.
What is Dumpster Diving?
“Dumpster diving” means searching trash for useful information. The trash may be in a public dumpster or in a restricted area requiring unauthorized entry. Dumpster diving depends on a human weakness: the lack of security knowledge. Many things can be found dumpster diving (e.g., CDs, DVDs, hard drives, company directories, and so forth).
What is Shoulder Surfing?
In computer security, shoulder surfing is a type of social engineering technique used to obtain information such as personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords and other confidential data by looking over the victim’s shoulder.
What is Pharming?
Pharming is a passive means of redirecting users from a legitimate website to a malicious one by corrupting the way the victim’s computer performs Internet name resolution.
What is the difference between Tailgating and Piggybacking?
Tailgating is the act of someone slipping in unexpectedly after an authorized person has opened the door. Similarly, piggybacking occurs when an authorized individual opens and holds the door for someone who may or may not have the proper credentials.
What is the difference between pretexting and
- Prepending means adding text that appears to have been generated by the mail system. For example, an attacker may add “RE:” to the subject line to make it appear as though the message is a reply or may add something like “MAILSAFE: PASSED” to make it appear as though a message has been scanned and accepted by some security software.
- Pretexting is a type of social engineering attack that involves a situation, or pretext, created by an attacker in order to lure a victim into a vulnerable situation and to trick them into giving private information, specifically information that the victim would typically not give outside the context of the pretext.
What is a security alert Hoax?
A hoax is a fake security alert. In some instances, when combined with a phishing technique, it can cause the user to provide private information or make a payment. In a hoax attack, an email alert or web pop-up will claim to have identified some sort of security problem, such as a virus infection, and offer a tool to fix the problem. The tool, of course, will be some sort of Trojan application.
What are invoice scams?
Invoice scams are a type of identity fraud. The fraudster will usually spoof the invoice details of a genuine supplier but change the bank account number.
What is Spyware
Spyware is a program that monitors user activity and sends the information to someone else. This can occur with or without the user’s knowledge.
Explain Rogueware
Rogue scanners, also known as fake scanners, fake AV, or rogueware, are pieces of code injected into legitimate sites or housed in fake sites. Their social engineering tactic normally involve displaying fictitious security scan results, threat notices, and other deceptive tactics in an effort to manipulate users into purchasing fake security software or licenses in order to remove potential threats that have supposedly infected their systems.
Explain Whaling vs Phishing vs Spear Phishing
- A whaling attack is a type of spear-phishing attack directed at high-level executives where attackers masquerade as legitimate, known and trusted entities and encourage a victim to share highly sensitive information or to send a wire transfer to a fraudulent account.
- Phishing is a combination of social engineering and spoofing, where the attacker sets up a spoof website to imitate a trusted one.
- Spear phishing refers to a phishing scam where the attacker has some information that makes an individual target more likely to be fooled by the attack.
How is credential harvesting conducted?
Credential Harvesting (or Account Harvesting) is the use of MITM attacks, DNS poisoning, phishing, and other vectors to amass large numbers of credentials (username / password combinations) for reuse.
What’s one of the benefits for the adversary to use a watering hole attack?
- A watering hole attack in which an attacker targets specific groups or organizations, discovers which websites they frequent, and injects malicious code into those sites.
- It’s another passive technique where the threat actor does not have to risk communicating directly with the target. It relies on the circumstance that a group of targets may use an unsecure third-party website.
What are the seven principles of social engineering?
Explain the relationship between malware, a virus, and a worm
Malware is malicious software. Any code that performs malicious activity is malware. There are several classifications of malware. Viruses are a type of malware that are executed with human interaction. Worms are also a type of malware that does not require human interaction for it to execute. So, worms and viruses are malware, but not every type of malware is a virus or worm.
