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Vnd.openxmlformats Officedocument.wordprocessingml.document&Rendition=1 4
Introduction, Proxy Servers And Anonymizers, Phishing, Password Cracking, Key Loggers
And Spywares, Virus And Worms, Trojan Horses And Backdoors, Steganography, DoS And
DDoS Attacks, SQL Injection, Buffer Overflow, Attacks On Wireless Networks, Phishing And
Identity Theft: Introduction, Phishing, Identity Theft (ID Theft)
1. Introduction
2. Proxy Servers and Anonymizers,
3. Phishing
4. Password Cracking
5. Key loggers and Spywares
6. Virus and Worms
7. Trojan Horses and Backdoors
8. Steganography
9. DoS and DDoS Attacks
10. SQL Injection
11. Buffer Overflow
12. Attacks on Wireless Networks
13. Phishing and Identity Theft: Introduction - Phishing,
14. Identity Theft (ID Theft)
Introduction
Different forms of attacks through which attackers target the computer systems are as
follows:
1. Initial uncovering:
Two steps are involved here.
i. In the first step called as reconnaissance, the attacker gathers information
about the target on the Internet websites.
ii. In the second step, the attacker finds the company’s internal
network, such as, Internet domain, machine names and the company’s
Internet Protocol (IP) address ranges to steal the data.
2. Network probe (investigation):
Offline Attacks
Mostly offline attacks are performed from a location other than the target (i.e.,
either a computer system or while on the network) where these passwords reside or are
used.
Offline attacks usually require physical access to the computer and copying the password
file from the system onto removable media.
Password guidelines.
1. Passwords used for business E-Mail accounts, personal E-Mail accounts and
banking/financial user accounts should be kept separate.
2. Passwords should be of minimum eight alphanumeric characters (common names or
phrases should be phrased).
3. Passwords should be changed every 30/45 days.
4. Passwords should not be shared with relatives and/or friends.
5. Password used previously should not be used while renewing the password.
6. Passwords of personal E-Mail accounts and banking/financial user accounts should
be changed from a secured system, within couple of days, if these E-Mail
accounts has been accessed from public Internet facilities such as
cybercafes/hotels/libraries.
7. Passwords should not be stored under mobile phones/PDAs, as these devices are also
prone to cyberattacks.
8. In case E-Mail accounts/user accounts have been hacked, respective agencies/institutes
should be contacted immediately.
Hardware Keyloggers
Hardware keyloggers are small hardware devices.
These are connected to the PC and/or to the keyboard and save every keystroke into a file
or in the memory of the hardware device.
Cybercriminals install such devices on ATM machines to capture ATM Cards’ PINs.
Each keypress on the keyboard of the ATM gets registered by these keyloggers.
These keyloggers look like an integrated part of such systems; hence, bank customers are
unaware of their presence.
Spywares
Spyware is a type of malware (i.e., malicious software) that is installed on computers
which collects information about users without their knowledge.
The presence of Spyware is typically hidden from the user; it is secretly installed on the
user’s personal computer.
Sometimes, however, Spywares such as keyloggers are installed by the owner of a
shared, corporate or public computer on purpose to secretly monitor other users.
Some Important Spywares are as follows:
Spy. Spector Pro. Spector Pro.
eBlaster. Remotespy . Stealth Recorder Pro.
Stealth Website Logger. Flexispy. Wiretap Professional.
PC PhoneHome. SpyArsenal Print Monitor Pro.
Follow the following steps to protect your systems from Trojan Horses and backdoors:
1. Stay away from suspect websites/weblinks:
2. Surf on the Web cautiously:
3. Install antivirus/Trojan remover software:
Steganography
Steganography is the practice of concealing (hiding) a file, message, image, or video
within another file, message, image, or video. The word steganography combines the
Greek words steganos , meaning "covered, concealed, or protected", and graphein
meaning "writing".
It is a method that attempts to hide the existence of a message or communication.
Steganography is always misunderstood with cryptography
The different names for steganography are data hiding, information hiding and digital
watermarking.
Steganography can be used to make a digital watermark to detect illegal copying of
digital images. Thus, it aids confidentiality and integrity of the data.
Digital watermarking is the process of possibly irreversibly embedding information into
a digital signal.
The Digital signal may be, for example, audio, pictures or video.
Steganalysis
Steganalysis is the art and science of detecting messages that are hidden in images,
audio/video files using steganography.
The goal of steganalysis is to identify suspected packages and to determine whether or
not they have a payload encoded into them, and if possible recover it.
Automated tools are used to detect such steganographed data/information hidden in the
image and audio and/or video files.
Box 4.7 | Difference between Steganography and Cryptography
Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one apart
from the intended recipient knows the existence of the message; this is in contrast to
cryptography, of the message itself is not disguised, but the content is obscured. It is said that
terrorists use where the existence steganography techniques to hide their communication in
images on the Internet; most popular images are used such as those of film actresses or other
celebrities. In its basic form, steganography is simple.
DoS Attacks
In this type of criminal act, the attacker floods the bandwidth of the victim’s network
or fills his E-Mail box with Spam mail depriving him of the services he is entitled to
access or provide.
The attackers typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers
such as banks, credit card payment gateways, mobile phone networks and even root name
servers.
• Buffer overflow technique is employed to commit such kind of criminal attack known as
Spoofing.
• The term IP address Spoofing refers to the creation of IP packets with a forged (spoofed) source IP address
with the purpose of concealing the ID of the sender or impersonating another computing system.
• A packet is a formatted unit of data carried by a packet mode computer network.
• The attacker spoofs the IP address and floods the network of the victim with repeated requests.
• As the IP address is fake, the victim machine keeps waiting for response from the attacker’s machine for
each request.
• This consumes the bandwidth of the network which then fails to serve the legitimate requests and
ultimately breaks down.
• The United States Computer Emergency Response Team defines symptoms of DoS attacks to include:
1.Logic attacks: These kind of attacks can exploit vulnerabilities in network software such as web
server or TCP/IP stack.
2. Protocol attacks: Protocols here are rules that are to be followed to send data over network.
3. Unintentional DoS attack : This is a scenario where a website ends up denied not due to a attack by a
single individual or group of individuals, but simply due to a sudden enormous spike in popularity.
DDoS Attacks
In a DDoS attack, an attacker may use your computer to attack another computer.
By taking advantage of security vulnerabilities or weaknesses, an attacker could take
control of your computer.
He/she could then force your computer to send huge amounts of data to a website or send
Spam to particular E-Mail addresses.
The attack is “distributed” because the attacker is using multiple computers, including
yours, to launch the DoS attack.
A DDoS attack is a distributed DoS wherein a large number of zombie systems are
synchronized to attack a particular system.
SQL Injection
Structured Query Language (SQL) is a database computer language designed for
managing data in relational database management systems (RDBMS).
SQL injection is a code injection technique that exploits a security vulnerability
occurring in the database layer of an application.
1. The attacker uses SQL commands such as SELECT statement command to retrieve data from the database
or INSERT statement to add information to the database.
Here are few examples of variable field text the attacker uses on a webpage to test for SQL vulnerabilities:
1. Blah’ or 1=1--
2. Login:blah’ or 1=1--
3. Password::blah’ or 1=1--
4. http://search/index.asp?id=blah’ or 1=1--
Similar SQL commands may allow bypassing of a login and may return many rows in a table or even an entire
database table because the SQL server is interpreting the terms literally. The double dashes near the end of the
command tell SQL to ignore the rest of the command as a comment.
sequences such as ; , --, select, insert and xp_ can be used to perform an SQL injection attack.
• Numeric values should be checked while accepting a query string value. Function
– IsNumeric() for Active Server Pages (ASP) should be used to check these numeric values.
• Keep all text boxes and form fields as short as possible to limit the length of user input.
2. Modify error reports: SQL errors should not be displayed to outside users
3. Other preventions
• The default system accounts for SQL server 2000 should never be used.
• Isolate database server and web server.
Here are a few examples of phrases used to entice the user to take the action.
1. “Verify your account”:
2. “You have won the lottery”:
3. “If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed”:
Let us understand the ways to reduce the amount of Spam E-Mails we receive.
1. Share personal E-Mail address with limited people and/or on public websites – the more
it is exposed to the public, the more Spam E-Mails will be received.
2. Never reply or open any Spam E-Mails.
3. Disguise the E-Mail address on public website or groups by spelling out the sign “@” and
the DOT (.); for example, RajeevATgmailDOTcom. This usually prohibits phishers to
catch valid E-Mail addresses while gathering E-Mail addresses through programs.
ID theft fraudsters and/or industrial/international spies target to gain the access to private,
confidential, secret and top secret information.