A look into cybersecurity(Day-01)
Hey, everyone!
Hope it’s been a good day.
Today we’ll discuss about five major important and interesting topics. I’d like to iterate that these are from my interpretation and solely on my understanding.
1. Botnet infection
You may have heard on the news or in any articles “Computer has been infected with botnets”, In simple terms it just means you’re computer is part of a swarm of likely-way’d malware. Together with other compromised computers/IoT devices,
your device would be remotely controlled by an attacker, These botnets are mostly used to do stealth activities such as crypto mining, DDOS and Cred stealing etc, It happens when you download applications from an unknown source or use cracked software frequently.
2. Intrusion detection systems
Like the name suggests they work by detecting any unwanted intruder’s attacks, once these are configured into the company they actively look and audit attack-prone part of the applications’ it was assigned to do. Unlike a traditional firewall, these work by detecting and alerting the respective teams.
A firewall can’t be placed in every inch of the company’s infra right? that’s why we have intrusion detection systems! They are very fun to get around with.
3. Intrusion prevention systems
These are opposite to what we had discussed above, an intrusion prevention system work by preventing the intruder’s attack vectors, simple isn’t it? quite close. But they work more than just the prevention, they minimize the attacking vectors themselves.
4. Tailgating attacks
These attacks are a part of the social engineering family and they are very sophisticated and manipulative, Tailgating attacks are used to gain unauthorized access and entry into restricted private areas such as data centers, Data facilities, server backup facilities etc. An attacker masks himself to be an authorized personnel and gets into the area.
“is that really easy?” No, Tailgating won’t suffice, the attacker needs to get inside the existing employee’s head by brewing more social engineering tactics for a success. Gotta look for a way to exploit him just like a machine.
**5. Captcha evasion and modern phishing ways **
Captcha is short for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”
it’s a security feature web-devs add to the abused-side of application to minimize bot presence and their activities, the evasion techniques include creating scripts to mimmick human interaction in the website (like perl, python and bash), it’s easier said than done but hey it’s still possible!
coming to phishing ways, It has been decades since it’s first disclosure but why most of the companies still falling prey? like humans attackers evolve over time thanks to the technology, There are literally 999 ways to trick employees into clicking legit looking information, these attacks are tailored to perfection aiming at that specific employee based on his/her interests/ways etc. Suppose an attacker can create a legit mail saying “Thank you <fname> for signing up to xxx letterbox, we will keep sending you the service you had requested.” and that mail will contain some bluffed info, now the victim can immediately click on the below unsubscribe hyperlink.
“please unsubscribe if you haven’t signed up” an unsuspecting employee can click it.
Now bingo! Got the network details and basic computer details to kickstart more attacks. “How is it phishing?” the hyperlink landing page would prompt victim to download an image which would start it’s service after successful installation. A .jpeg is less susceptible than a .exe right? yes!
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you again tomorrow.