Tools and Methods used in

Cybercrime
UNIT 5
Unit 4: Learning Objectives
 Proxy servers and anonymizers
 Password cracking
 Keyloggers and spywares
 Overview of virus and worms
 Trojan horses and backdoors
 Steganography
 DoS and DDoS attacks
 SQL injection
 Buffer overflow
Stages of an attack on network
1. Initial covering: two stages
1. Reconnaissance- social networking websites
2. Uncovers information on company’s IP
2. Network probe:
1. Ping sweep- seek out potential targets
2. Port scanning
3. Crossing the line toward electronic
crime:
1. Commits computer crime by exploiting
possible holes on the target system
Stages of an attack on network
4. Capturing the network:
- attackers attempts to own the network
- uses tools to remove any evidence of the attack
- trojan horses, backdoors
5. Grab the data:
- attacker has captured the network
- steal confidential data, customer CC information,
deface webpages…
6. Covering the attack:
- extend misuse of the attack without being detected.
- start a fresh reconnaissance to a related target
system
- continue use of resources
- remove evidence of hacking
Various tools used for the attack
 Proxy severs and Anonymizers
 Phishing
 Password cracking
 Keyloggers and spywares
 Virus and Worms
 Trojan horses and Backdoors
 Steganography
 SQL injection
 DoS and DDoS attack tools
 Buffer overflow
1. Proxy severs and Anonymizers
 A proxy server is a dedicated computer or
a software system running on a computer
that acts as an intermediary between an
endpoint device, such as a computer, and
another server from which a user or client
is requesting a service.
 A client connects to the proxy server,
requesting some service, such as a file,
connection, web page, or other resource
available from a different server and the
proxy server evaluates the request as a way
to simplify and control its complexity.
Purpose of a proxy server
 Improve Performance:
 Filter Requests
 Keep system behind the curtain
 Used as IP address multiplexer
 Its Cache memory can serve all users
Attack on this: the attacker first
connects to a proxy server- establishes
connection with the target through
existing connection with the proxy.
An Anonymous
 An anonymous proxy is a tool that attempts to
make activity on the Internet untraceable.
 It is a proxy server computer that acts as an
intermediary and privacy shield between a client
computer and the rest of the Internet.
 It accesses the Internet on the user's behalf,
protecting personal information by hiding the
client computer's identifying information.
 For example, large news outlets such as CNN
target the viewers according to region and give
different information to different populations
2. Phishing
 Stealing personal and financial data
 Also can infect systems with viruses
 A method of online ID theft
How Phishing works?
1. Planning : use mass mailing and address
collection techniques- spammers
2. Setup : E-Mail / webpage to collect data
about the target
3. Attack : send a phony message to the
target
4. Collection: record the information
obtained
5. Identity theft and fraud: use information
to commit fraud or illegal purchases
3. Password Cracking
 password cracking is the process of
recovering passwords from data that have
been stored in or transmitted by a
computer system.
 A common approach (brute-force attack)
is to try guesses repeatedly for the
password and check them against an
available cryptographic hash of the
password.
The purpose of password cracking
 help a user recover a forgotten password
 to gain unauthorized access to a system,
 or as a preventive measure by System
Administrators to check for easily
crackable passwords
Manual Password Cracking
Algorithm
 Find a valid user
•Create a list of possible passwords
•Rank the passwords from high
probability to low
•Key in each password
•If the system allows you in - Success
•Else try till success
examples of guessable passwords
 Blank
 Words like “passcode” ,”password”, “admin”
 Series of letters “QWERTY”
 User’ s name or login name
 Name of the user’s friend/relative/pet
 User’s birth place, DOB
 Vehicle number, office number ..
 Name of celebrity
 Simple modification of one of the precedings,
suffixing 1 …
Categories of password cracking
attacks:
 Online attacks
 Offline attacks
 Non-electronic attacks
◦ Social engineering
◦ Shoulder surfing
◦ Dumpster diving
Online attacks
 An attacker may create a script-
automated program- to try each
password
 Most popular online attack;- man-in-the-
middle attack or bucket-brigade attack
 Used to obtain passwords for E-mail
accounts on public websites like gmail,
yahoomail
 Also to get passwords for financial
websites
Offline attacks
 Are performed from a location other
than the target where these passwords
reside or are used
 Require physical access to the computer
and copying the password
Types of Password Attacks
 Password Guessing
◦ Attackers can guess passwords locally or
remotely using either a manual or automated
approach
 Dictionary attacks
◦ work on the assumption that most passwords
consist of whole words, dates, or numbers taken
from a dictionary.
 Hybrid password
◦ assume that network administrators push users
to make their passwords at least slightly different
from a word that appears in a dictionary.
Weak passwords
 The password contains less than eight characters
 The password is a word found in a dictionary (English or foreign)
 The password is a common usage word such as:
 Names of family, pets, friends, co-workers, fantasy characters, etc.
 Computer terms and names, commands, sites, companies,
hardware, software.
 The words "<Company Name>", "sanjose", "sanfran" or any
derivation.
 Birthdays and other personal information such as addresses and
phone numbers.
 Word or number patterns like aaabbb, qwerty, zyxwvuts, 123321,
etc.
 Any of the above spelled backwards.
 Any of the above preceded or followed by a digit (e.g.,
secret1,1secret
Strong Passwords
 Contain both upper and lower case characters (e.g., a-z, A-Z)
 Have digits and punctuation characters as well as letters e.g.,
0-9, @#$%^&*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:";'<>?,./)
 Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long.
 Are not a word in any language, slang, dialect, jargon, etc.
 Are not based on personal information, names of family, etc.
 Passwords should never be written down or stored on-line.
 Try to create passwords that can be easily remembered.
 One way to do this is create a password based on a song
title, affirmation, or other phrase.
 For example, the phrase might be: "This May Be One Way To
Remember"
 and the password could be: "TmB1w2R!" or "Tmb1W>r~"
or some other variation.
4. keyloggers
 Keystroke logging, often referred to as
keylogging or keyboard capturing, is the
action of recording (or logging) the keys
struck on a keyboard, typically in a covert
manner so that the person using the
keyboard is unaware that their actions are
being monitored.
 It has uses in the study of human–computer
interaction.
 There are numerous keylogging methods,
ranging from hardware and software-based
approaches to acoustic analysis.
Software-based keyloggers
 Software-based keyloggers use the target
computer’s operating system in various ways,
including: imitating a virtual machine, acting
as the keyboard driver (kernel-based), using
the application programming interface to
watch keyboard strokes (API-based),
recording information submitted on web-
based forms (Form Grabber based) or
capturing network traffic associated with
HTTP POST events to steal passwords
(Packet analyzers).
 Usually consists of two files DLL and EXE
Hardware keyloggers
 installing a hardware circuit between the
keyboard and the computer that logs
keyboard stroke activity (keyboard
hardware).
 Target- ATMs
Acoustic keylogging
 Acoustic keylogging monitors the sound
created by each individual keystroke and
uses the subtly different acoustic
signature that each key emits to analyze
and determine what the target
computer’s user is typing.
AntiKeylogger
 An anti-keylogger (or anti–keystroke
logger) is a type of software specifically
designed for the detection of keystroke
logger software; often, such software will
also incorporate the ability to delete or at
least immobilize hidden keystroke logger
software on your computer.
Benefits of Antikeyloggers
Spywares
 Spyware is software that aims to gather
information about a person or
organization without their knowledge and
that may send such information to
another entity without the consumer's
consent, or that asserts control over a
computer without the consumer's
knowledge
5.Virus and Worms
 A computer virus is a malware program
that, when executed, replicates by
inserting copies of itself (possibly
modified) into other computer programs,
data files, or the boot sector of the hard
drive; when this replication succeeds, the
affected areas are then said to be
"infected".
Virus spread through
 The internet
 A stand alone PC
 Local networks
Difference between virus and worm
Types of viruses
 Boot sector viruses
 Program viruses
 Multipartite viruses
 Stealth viruses
 Polymorphic viruses
 Macroviruses
 Active X and Java contrl
Boot sector viruses
 A boot sector virus is a computer virus that infects a storage
device's master boot record (MBR).
 It is not mandatory that a boot sector virus successfully boot
the victim's PC to infect it.
 As a result, even non-bootable media can trigger the spread
of boot sector viruses.
 These viruses copy their infected code either to the floppy
disk's boot sector or to the hard disk's partition table.
During start-up, the virus gets loaded to the computer's
memory. As soon as the virus is saved to the memory, it
infects the non-infected disks used by the system.
 The propagation of boot sector viruses has become very
rare since the decline of floppy disks. Also, present-day
operating systems include boot-sector safeguards that make
it difficult for boot sector viruses to infect them.
Program viruses
 A program virus becomes active when
the program file (usually with extensions
.BIN, .COM, .EXE, .OVL, .DRV) carrying
the virus is opened.
 Once active, the virus will make copies of
itself and will infect other programs on
the computer.
Multipartite viruses
 A multipartite virus is a fast-moving virus that uses file infectors or
boot infectors to attack the boot sector and executable files
simultaneously.
 Most viruses either affect the boot sector, the system or the
program files.
 The multipartite virus can affect both the boot sector and the
program files at the same time, thus causing more damage than any
other kind of virus.
 When the boot sector is infected, simply turning on the computer
will trigger a boot sector virus because it latches on to the hard
drive that contains the data that is needed to start the computer.
Once the virus has been triggered, destructive payloads are
launched throughout the program files.
 A multipartite virus infects computer systems multiple times and at
different times. In order for it to be eradicated, the entire virus
must be removed from the system.
 A multipartite virus is also known as a hybrid virus.
Stealth viruses
 A stealth virus is a hidden computer virus
that attacks operating system processes
and averts typical anti-virus or anti-
malware scans. Stealth viruses hide in files,
partitions and boot sectors and are adept
at deliberately avoiding detection.

Stealth virus eradication requires

advanced anti-virus software or a clean
system reboot.
Polymorphic viruses
 A polymorphic virus is a complicated computer virus
that affects data types and functions.
 It is a self-encrypted virus designed to avoid
detection by a scanner.
 Upon infection, the polymorphic virus duplicates itself
by creating usable, albeit slightly modified, copies of
itself.

 Polymorphism, in computing terms, means that a

single definition can be used with varying amounts of
data. In order for scanners to detect this type of
virus, brute-force programs must be written to
combat and detect the polymorphic virus with novel
variant configurations.
Macroviruses
 A macro virus is a computer virus
that "infects" a Microsoft Word or
similar application and causes a
sequence of actions to be performed
automatically when the application
is started or something else triggers
it.
Active X and Java contrl
 ActiveX and Java were created for web page
designers to incorporate a wide array of impressive
effects on web pages, giving movement and added
dimension to the previously "flat" web pages.
 To operate properly, these ActiveX controls and Java
applets need to gain access to your hard disk.
Insufficient memory and bandwidth problems
necessitate this approach. Although this desktop
access provides a wealth of beneficial applications of
these controls and applets, malicious code developers
have the same access. They are now using it to read
and delete or corrupt files, access RAM, and even
access files on computers attached via a LAN.
6. Trojan horses and Backdoors
 A Trojan horse, or Trojan, in computing
is generally a non-self-replicating type of
malware program containing malicious
code that, when executed, carries out
actions determined by the nature of the
Trojan, typically causing loss or theft of
data, and possible system harm
Examples of threats by trojans
 Erase, overwrite or corrupt data on a computer
 Help to spread other malware such as viruses- dropper
trojan
 Deactivate or interface with antivirus and firewall programs
 Allow remote access to your computer- remote access
trojan
 Upload and download files
 Gather E-mail address and use for spam
 Log keystrokes to steal information – pwds, CC numbers
 Copy fake links to false websites
 slowdown, restart or shutdown the system
 Disable task manager
 Disable the control panel
Backdoors
 A backdoor in a computer system is a method
of bypassing normal authentication, securing
unauthorized remote access to a computer,
obtaining access to plaintext, and so on, while
attempting to remain undetected.
 Also called a trapdoor. An undocumented way of
gaining access to a program, online service or an
entire computer system.
 The backdoor is written by the programmer who
creates the code for the program. It is often only
known by the programmer. A backdoor is a
potential security risk.
Functions of backdoors
Allows an attacker to
 create, delete, rename, copy or edit any file
 Execute commands to change system
settings
 Alter the windows registry
 Run, control and terminate applications
 Install arbitrary software and parasites
 Control computer hardware devices,
 Shutdown or restart computer
Functions of backdoors
 Steals sensitive personal information, valuable
documents, passwords, login name…
 Records keystrokes, captures screenshots
 Sends gathered data to predefined E-mail addresses
 Infects files, corrupts installed apps, damages entire
system
 Distributes infected files to remote computers
 Installs hidden FTP server
 Degrades internet connection and overall system
performance
 Decreases system security
 Provides no uninstall feature, hides processes, files
and other objects
How to protect from Trojan Horses
and backdoors

 Stay away from suspect websites/ links

 Surf on the web cautiously : avoid P2P

networks

 Install antivirus/ Trojan remover software

7. Steganography
 Steganography (from Greek steganos, or
"covered," and graphie, or "writing") is the
hiding of a secret message within an
ordinary message and the extraction of it at
its destination.
 Steganography takes cryptography a step
farther by hiding an encrypted message so
that no one suspects it exists. Ideally, anyone
scanning your data will fail to know it
contains encrypted data.
 Other names: data hiding, information
hiding, digital watermarking
digital watermarking
 Digital watermarking is the act of hiding a
message (trademark) related to a digital signal (i.e.
an image, song, video) within the signal itself.
 It is a concept closely related to steganography, in
that they both hide a message inside a digital
signal.
 However, what separates them is their goal.
 Watermarking tries to hide a message related to
the actual content of the digital signal,
 while in steganography the digital signal has no
relation to the message, and it is merely used as a
cover to hide its existence.
Difference between steganography
and cryptography
 Cryptography is the study of hiding information, while
Steganography deals with composing hidden messages so
that only the sender and the receiver know that the message
even exists.
 In Steganography, only the sender and the receiver know the
existence of the message, whereas in cryptography the
existence of the encrypted message is visible to the world.
 Due to this, Steganography removes the unwanted attention
coming to the hidden message.
 Cryptographic methods try to protect the content of a
message, while Steganography uses methods that would hide
both the message as well as the content.
 By combining Steganography and Cryptography one can
achieve better security.
8.DoS and DDoS attacks
 In computing, a denial-of-service (DoS)
or distributed denial-of-service
(DDoS) attack is an attempt to make a
machine or network resource unavailable
to its intended users.
 A DoS attack generally consists of
efforts to temporarily or indefinitely
interrupt or suspend services of a host
connected to the Internet.
Symptoms of DoS attacks
 Slow network performance
 Unavailability of a particular website
 Inability to access any website
 Dramatic increase in number of Spam E-
mails received
A DoS attack may do the following
 Flood the traffic, thereby preventing
network traffic
 Disrupt connections between two
systems- preventing access to service
 Prevent a particular individual from
accessing a service
 Disrupt service to a specific system or
person
Classification of DoS
 Bandwidth attacks
 Logic attacks
 Protocol attacks
 Unintentional DoS attack
Bandwidth attacks
 The most common DoS attacks
 target the computer's network bandwidth
or connectivity.
 Bandwidth attacks flood the network with
such a high volume of traffic, that all
available network resources are
consumed and legitimate user requests
can not get through.
Logic attacks
 An attacker sends more requests to a server than
it can handle, usually in a relentless manner, until
the server buckles and gives in to the attacker.
Once this type of attack ends, the server can
return to normal operation.
 Generally, a logic attack requires your server to
have a discoverable weakness that the attacker
can locate and then use against it.
 Because of this prerequisite, it is usually easy to
prevent by keeping your server software and
hardware up-to-date with the latest security
patches and firmware respectively
Protocol attacks

 Denial of service attacks may take advantage

of certain standard protocol features.
 Several attacks capitalize on the fact that IP
source addresses can be spoofed.
 In addition, connection depletion attacks
take advantage of the fact that many
connection-oriented protocols require
servers to maintain state information after a
connection request is made but before the
connection is fully established.
 The most common connection depletion
attack is SYN flooding
Unintentional DoS attack
 This describes a situation where a
website ends up denied, not due to a
deliberate attack by a single individual or
group of individuals, but simply due to a
sudden enormous spike in popularity.
 This can happen when an extremely
popular website posts a prominent link to
a second, less well-prepared site, for
example, as part of a news story.
DDoS attack
 A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
attack is an attempt to make an online
service unavailable by overwhelming it
with traffic from multiple sources.
 They target a wide variety of important
resources, from banks to news websites,
and present a major challenge to making
sure people can publish and access
important information.
how to prevent dos/ddos attacks
 Filtering: Routers at the edge of the
network can be trained to spot and drop
DDOS connections, preventing them from
slowing the network or the server.
 Moving: If the attack is pointed at a specific
IP address, the site’s IP can be changed.
 Blackholing: A host may simply “blackhole”
a site that is being DDOSed, directing all
traffic to it to an address that doesn’t exist.
This is normally a last resort.
9. SQL Injection
 SQL injection is a code injection
technique, used to attack data-driven
applications, in which malicious SQL
statements are inserted into an entry field
for execution (e.g. to dump the database
contents to the attacker).
 It is the type of attack that takes advantage
of improper coding of your web applications
that allows hacker to inject SQL commands
into say a login form to allow them to gain
access to the data held within your database.
What an attacker can do?

* ByPassing Logins : by obtaining

username and passwords

* Accessing secret data : reconnaissance

* Adding new data or Modifying contents

of website: INSERT/UPDATE

* Shutting down the My SQL server

steps for SQL Injection attack
 Step 1: Finding Vulnerable Website:
◦ find the Vulnerable websites(hackable websites) using Google Dork list.
◦ google dork is searching for vulnerable websites using the google
searching tricks
◦ use “inurl:” command for finding the vulnerable websites.
 Some Examples:
inurl:index.php?id=
inurl:gallery.php?id=
inurl:article.php?id=
inurl:pageid=
 How to use?
copy one of the above command and paste in the google search
engine box.
Hit enter.
You can get list of web sites.
We have to visit the websites one by one for checking the
vulnerability.
 Step 2: Checking the Vulnerability:
◦ Now we should check the vulnerability of websites.
◦ In order to check the vulnerability ,add the single
quotes(‘) at the end of the url and hit enter.
 For eg:
http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=2'
◦ If the page remains in same page or showing that
page not found or showing some other webpages.
Then it is not vulnerable.
◦ If it showing any errors which is related to sql query,
then it is vulnerable.
 Step 3: Finding Number of columns:
◦ Now we have found the website is vulnerable.
◦ Next step is to find the number of columns in the table.
For that replace the single quotes(‘) with “order by n” statement
◦ Change the n from 1,2,3,4,,5,6,…n. Until you get the error like
“unknown column “.
 For eg:

 http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=2 order by 1
http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=2 order by 2
http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=2 order by 3
http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=2 order by 4
…..
http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=2 order by 8(error)
so now x=8 , The number of column is x-1 i.e, 7.
 Step 4: Displaying the Vulnerable
columns:
◦ Using “union select columns_sequence” we can
find the vulnerable part of the table. Replace the
“order by n” with this statement.
◦ And change the id value to negative
◦ Replace the columns_sequence with the no from
1 to x-1(number of columns) separated with
commas(,).
 For eg:
if the number of columns is 7 ,then the
query is as follow:

 http://www.victimsite.com/index.php?id=-2
union select 1,2,3,4,5,6,7—
10. Buffer overflow
 In computer security and programming, a
buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an
anomaly where a program, while writing data
to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary
and overwrites adjacent memory. This is a
special case of violation of memory safety.
 This may result in erratic program behavior
 Buffer overflows are not easy to discover
and even when one is discovered, it is
generally extremely difficult to exploit.
Types of buffer overflow
 stack-based buffer overflow
 Heap buffer overflow
 NOPs
How to minimize buffer overflow
 Assessment of secure code manually
 Disable stack execution
 Compiler tools
 Dynamic run-time checks
 Various tools are used to detect/ defend
buffer overflow
◦ stackGaurd
◦ Propolice
◦ LibSafe