All
right, let's take a look at Module Two, dealing with information security attacks.
Now, again, as we're going through this, we're going to see some recapitulation.
You'll see some terms that we may be talking about in a previous module.
They may come back up in a later discussion.
At that point, we're going to check those off as we've discussed them and move on.
That's part of my editing process where I
distill the deck down to a little bit more manageable size.
But we're going to see some duplicity, some triplicity, and sometimes some
quadrupplicity, if that's a word, between modules.
If there is a difference in the core definition, we'll go ahead and address it.
But otherwise, we'll consider that topic discussed and keep on moving.
All right, motives, goals, and objectives of information security attacks.
Now, we mentioned a risk equation in one of the previous chapters.
This is a attack equation.
It's not necessarily mathematical, but the
attack is a combination of motive plus goal plus vulnerability.
I've had students raise their hand in the
past say, exactly how are you supposed to work the math out on that?
Not meant to be.
It's meant just to describe, but it's a accumulation of those three factors.
Motivs, why are you doing it?
Method, the ability, the vulnerability.
The method would be the exploit, the vulnerability would be the weakness.
We just spent a good bit of time in the
previous chapter module talking about different types of vulnerabilities.
The classifications of attacks.
Attacks can be passive, they can be active, you can be close in, they can be
physical, they can be this, they can be that.
But a passive attack, anything that's passive in nature,
typically is not noticeable, doesn't engage the target directly.
We're going to talk about that in our
Ethical Hacking cycle, we'll look at footprint and reconnaissance.
Passive generally means I'm not really directly interacting with anything.
I'm sitting by and sniffing network traffic, eaves dropping, that thing.
Active attacks, I am actively trying to
break into something, or I'm manipulating data, or I'm manipulating a system.
Examples would include DOS, man in the
middle, session hijacking, SQL injection, and close in attacks.
I always want to say close in when I read that.
But a close in attack is where you're in
close physical proximity to the target system to disrupt access to information.
Perfect example, this would be shoulder surfing.
You're looking over somebody's shoulder,
you're in real tight or in close proximity, close in attack.
It's not just disrupting access to information.
Inside our tasks, we talked about insider
threats a bit in the previous module, so we'll call that addressed.
But insider tasks inside the perimeter may be knowing, may be unknowing, but once
you're inside the perimeter, a lot of that perimeter security is no longer an issue.
So insider attacks are especially
dangerous because you've already circumvented perimeter security controls.
Distribution attacks deal with the supply chain or distribution channels.
So tampering with hardware or software prior to installation.