Cyber Security Flashcards
what is social engineering
art of manipulating or ‘conning’ individuals into giving away private information or login IDs and passwords
phishing is an example of
social engineering
what is phishing
act of sending a malicious email to a target user, with the intent of stealing information from them
what is brute force attack
hacker may go through a list of the most common passwords until access to an account is gained. This is usually automated using common hacking tools.
Alternatively, the attacker may try every combination of characters until the correct password is found. An attacker could try doing this on an email account, a social media account or a standard computer account
what is malware
software that can cause harm to a computer system. Malware is a broad term which can include viruses, trojan horses and spyware. As well as harming computer systems, they also cause significant financial damage, denial of service (DOS) and lack of functionality to key infrastructure.
what is DDoS attack
- A DDoS attack occurs when a number of computer systems – often thousands – suddenly send an incredible amount of internet traffic towards a single server or system.
- When this occurs, the bandwidth available for the target system, as well as system resources like CPU and RAM, become strained.
- When enough traffic is sent to the target system at the same time, the target is knocked offline. It becomes inaccessible to legitimate users because the target cannot cope with the sheer volume of traffic.
why does a DDoS attack occur
including hacktivism , nation-state actors performing attacks on rival countries, or simply a person or group of people doing it for their own personal reasons
what is hacking
gaining access to a computer system without authorisation
what is pharming
- form of fraud, and takes place online through malicious websites posing as legitimate businesses, such as banks.
- The goal of pharming is to trick the user into sharing personal information such as bank details, passwords and email addresses.
- Criminals will then sell this data or use it for identity theft and financial fraud.
- Pharming takes place when a computer is infected with malicious code, which automatically sends the victim to a bogus website through an attack method called DNS poisoning .
what is data interception
malicious attacker intercepts data in transit – when it leaves one system to be transmitted to another system – and uses that data for their own criminal activities, or to perform further attacks
computer virus
attaches itself to other programs (e.g. files) and then making copies of itself to spread from one computer to another. Modifies files and continues to spread.
Types of malware
- computer virus
- ransomware
- trojan
- keyogger/spyware
- adware
- worm
ransomware
prevents you from accessing your device (and the data stored) by encryption
The computer may become locked or the data might be stolen, deleted or encrypted.
Often spread through emails containing malicious attachments or drive-by downloading
trojan
downloads onto a computer but disguised as a legitimate program to get data
Uses social engineering to get the users access password
Trick you into downloading harmful programs
keylogger/spyware
ecords what a person types on a device
Keylogger is put on a computer when user downloads an infected application. Then, it monitors the actions that the user perform
Can be installed through a text message, apps, infected website, etc.
adware
catches the user’s attention through advertisement
It secretly installs itself onto your device
It is dangerous as it slows down your device and hijacks your browser to install viruses
The most common way it gets installed in a computer is that it is downloaded from the internet usually through ads without your knowledge
worm
operates by sending copies of itself from one device to another
Has the capacity to replicate without human intervention
Does not need to attach itself to apps or software to cause damage
what to access levels do
ensure that:
- A user can only access their personal documents, and not others
- A user can only access the shared documents that are relevant to them
- Other users cannot view, edit, copy or delete data and information that doesn’t concern them
what do Anti-virus and anti-spyware software do
actively scan the computer system and, upon finding malicious files or software, either place it in ‘quarantine’ (a safe place on the system) or simply delete it from the system
Automatic software updates
Once a new strain of malware has been identified, software updates are usually very quick to roll out, so having ‘automatic updates’ enabled ensures these protections are automatically downloaded and installed on your system
authentication (username and password, biometrics, two-step verification)
password - anyone with an account must adhere to a strict format when choosing a password
biometrics - scanning your fingerprint or retina: unique
two step - more security
firewalls
prevent unwanted network traffic to and from your computer by closing and opening ports on a computer system, which are used by different protocols
A firewall closes ports that do not need to be open, and monitors traffic going in and out of ports that are open
privacy settings
effective way to control your visibility and protect you from malicious users looking for your personal information
proxy server
proxy server acts as a service to hide your IP address
- request goes from computer to proxy
- request then gets sent to to the web through the proxy
Checking spelling and tone of communications
phishing emails often contain
- Bad spelling or grammar
- Non-personal greeting (for example Dear Sir/Madam)
- A sense of urgency, asking the user to perform an action quickly
- Asking the user to click on a link in the email
Checking a link’s URL
it is good practice to check any URL before clicking, as sometimes the text shown is not the URL hidden behind the link. You can do this in most email applications by hovering the cursor over the link, which will show the real URL in a pop-up.
SSL
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is used to secure credit card transactions and data transfer, and is now becoming the norm for securing social media sites.
When you browse with SSL enabled, all traffic between your computer and the website is encrypted, so anyone who intercepts your data cannot make sense of it
