Lecture 21: Malware and attacks Flashcards
What are some examples of what can occur in malware and cyber attacks?
export, alter, disable, destroy, steal or gain unauthorized access to or make unauthorized use of an asset
What are some of the goals of malware and cyber attacks?
1) disabling the target computer or knocking it offline
2) getting access to the target computer’s data and perhaps gaining admin privileges on it
What are some of the attack methods for malware and cyber attacks?
social engineering hacking and cracking viruses and worms trojan horses denial of service (DoS) attacks rootkits blended treats zero-day attacks bots and botnets buffer overflow
What is social engineering?
persuading someone to do something
What is hacking and cracking?
guessing, corrupting or stealing info
What is a viruses i.t.o malware?
propagates by inserting a copy of itself into and becoming part of another programme e.g. Melissa, CryptoMix
executable piece of code
What is a worm i.t.o malware?
replicates functional copies of itself but does not require a host program’s help to propagate e.g. WannaCry, Code-Red, Nimda, Slammer
What is a Trojan horse?
harmful piece of software that looks legitimate –> backdoor trojan, downloader trojan, ransom trojan
normally waiting to be downloaded or installed by a user and then executing attack e.g. email attachment
What are network layer attacks?
IP spoofing (masquerading), sequencing number prediction, TCP hijacking
What are web-based attacks?
cross-site scripting, cooking poisoning, SQL injection
What are examples of DoS operating system attacks?
Ping of Death, Tear Drop, Land, Snork
What are examples of DoS network attacks?
SYN flood, TCP fin/rst, Smurf, Coke
What are examples of DoS distributed Dos attacks?
Cayosin, TCP Flood, Reflection
What is are some examples of social engineering attacks?
1) phishing attacks on bank customers
2) inviting someone to log into a bogus website –> spoofed bank website
3) impersonating a new employee who has forgotten user ID and/or password
4) impersonating a technician support staff member and requesting a user to “check” accounts
What do social engineering attacks commonly persuade someone to do?
run/install malicious or subverted software
Outline what a spear phishing attack involves
1) email appearing to be from an individual or business that users know
2) looking for credit card and bank account numbers, passwords, and other financial information
What type of attack is a spear phishing attack?
social engineering attack
Outline hacking and cracking
password discovery by trying default passwords e.g. “guest”
password cracking tools, readily available from the internet for a wide range of password protection systems
What are the password attacks?
1) brute force attacks
2) dictionary attacks
What is a brute force password attack?
try every combo for a password with few characters
What is a dictionary attack?
for real-word passwords, use database of passwords
What tools can be used for doing password attacks?
CRACK, L0phtcrack, John the Ripper
What are one-time passwords (OTPs)? Why is it valuable?
an automatically generated numeric or alphanumeric string of characters that authenticates a user for a single transaction or login session.
An OTP is more secure than a static password, especially a user-created password, which can be weak and/or reused across multiple accounts.
How do viruses travel and spread?
attaching itself to legitimate executable programs
What do viruses cause?
some unexpected and usually undesirable behaviour
Give an example of how viruses can automatically spread to other computer users?
tranfering infected files via email attachments
Do worms run independently ?
yes
How can a worm propagate a complete working version of itself onto other host on a network?
usually by exploiting software vulnerabilities in the target system
Do trojan horses use infected files or propagation?
no
What does installing a trojan horse allow the attacker to access?
user’s machine remotely via the internet
