Topic 6 - Cyber Security

Question 1

What are the 4 types of attacks ?

Answer 1

Active attack
Social engineering
Passive attack insider attack

Question 2

What is an active attack ?

Answer 2

When someone uses malware or other technical methods to compromise a network’s security

Question 3

What is social engineering?

Answer 3

When a person is exploited into giving away critical information that gives access to the network or accounts.

Question 4

What is a passive attack ?

Answer 4

When a hacker eavesdrops on a network by ‘sniffing’ the data packets

Question 5

What is an insider attack ?

Answer 5

When someone in an organisation gives away access details or sensitive information.

Question 6

What is the name for any methods which allow users to prove that an account is theirs ?

Answer 6

Authentication

Question 7

What is the most common authentication method ?

Answer 7

The most common authentication method is using a password.

Question 8

Why do many hackers want to find people’s passwords ?

Answer 8

so that they can gain access to accounts:

Question 9

What is Finding people’s passwords called ?

Answer 9

cracking the password

Question 10

What is a brute force attack ?

Answer 10

A brute force attack tries to crack a password by trying every single combination of letters and numbers until the correct one is found

Question 11

What is the problem with a brute force attack ?

Answer 11

This can take a very long time, although special software is used to do this which makes it possible to make millions of attempts per second

Question 12

What is a dictionary attack ?

Answer 12

A quicker form of the brute force attack is the dictionary attack.

Rather than attempting every single combination, a dictionary attack tries words from a predetermined list:
A common dictionary to use would be a list of common passwords.

Question 13

What are three ways to protect against password cracking ?

Answer 13

Writing a network policy which enforces strong passwords can protect against dictionary attacks.

Using two-factor authentication can prevent the hacker from logging in, even if they have the password.

Restricting the number of failed password attempts before an account is ‘locked’ for a fixed period of time can deter hackers.

Question 14

How do denial of service (DoS) attacks work ?

Answer 14

A denial of service (DoS) attack tries to bring down a server by flooding it with many useless requests.

The attack aims to overload the server. This stops the server responding to legitimate requests

Question 15

What can be used to protect a server from a DoS attack ?

Answer 15

A fire wall

Question 16

How does a fire wall protect a server from a DoS attack ?

Answer 16

a server’s firewall can blacklist (ban) any traffic from an IP address which is known to perform DoS attacks.

Firewalls can also monitor traffic in real time. So if a new IP address starts to send too much traffic then traffic limits can be set.

Question 17

When are Distributed DoS (DDos) attacks used ?

Answer 17

commonly used to overcome the blacklisting of an IP address because of a high number of requests

Question 18

In a DDoS attack how are requests sent ?

Answer 18

from an army of compromised machines, known as a botnet

Question 19

How do the bonnets work in DDoS attacks ?

Answer 19

Botnet machines are infected with malware which allows a hacker to send requests from their computer.

The botnet can launch a huge number of simultaneous requests. The owners of the devices in the botnet might not even realise they are taking part.

Question 20

What does Penetration testing identify ?

Answer 20

vulnerabilities in a network’s security

Question 21

How does penetrating testing work ?

Answer 21

by attempting a controlled attack on the network

This usually involves carrying out multiple types of attack to see which is most successful.

Question 22

Who performs penetration testing ?

Answer 22

the organisation itself, or an external organisation or contractor they have hired

Question 23

What does a good penetration test check ?

Answer 23

Technical vulnerabilities.
Likelihood of social engineering.
A test of damage recovery

Question 24

What is the motivation for penetration testing ?

Answer 24

Organisations choose to perform penetration testing to try to find vulnerabilities before criminals do.

If an organisation can find and fix a bug before it is exploited, it can save time and money.

Question 25

What are the two types of penetration tests ?

Answer 25

White box penetrating testing

Black box penetrating testing

Question 26

What is white box penetration testing ?

Answer 26

A white box penetration test is done inside an organisation.

In a white box penetration test, system administrators will test how vulnerable the system is against someone with knowledge of the system, and possibly a user account with low access rights.

This will help to prevent insider attacks.

Question 27

What is black box penetration testing ?

Answer 27

A black box penetration test is done outside of an organisation.

A system administrator might pay an outside organisation to attempt to gain access to their systems in a controlled way.

This will allow the system administrators to experience a ‘practice’ attack which is very similar
to a real attack.

Question 28

Who are often the weak point in any network security package?

Answer 28

People

Question 29

What is social engineering?

Answer 29

the art of manipulating people so they give up confidential information

Question 30

What are ways to protect against social engineering?

Answer 30

Education and training
Public awareness campaigns
Company security policies

Question 31

What’s the most effective means of protection against social engineering ?

Answer 31

education and training

Question 32

How does education and training help prevent social engineering?

Answer 32

People are made aware of the tactics of fraudsters:

This makes it more likely that they will recognise a fraudulent phone call.

Question 33

How do company and security policies help prevent social engineering?

Answer 33

Company security policies include instructions that employees must follow to uphold security.
For example:
Don’t discuss a user account without the user having confirmed their PIN number.

Question 34

How do public awareness campaigns help prevent social engineering?

Answer 34

Banks and governments often run public awareness campaigns to educate members of the public about the risks of social engineering.

These often include case studies of what could happen if people do not take care.

Question 35

What are three types of social engineering?

Answer 35

Shouldering
Pharming
Blagging