Web spoofing (1)

WEB SPOOFING By: Khushboo Taneja

Web Spoofing : An internet security attack. Allows an attacker to create a “shadow copy” of the entire World Wide Web. Attacker creates misleading context in order to trick the victim. Online fraud.

Spoofing: It means pretending to be something you are not. In internet terms, it means pretending to be a different IP address from the one you really have in order to gain something.

Starting the Attack: The attacker must somehow lure the victim into the attacker’s false web, there are several ways to do this. An attacker can put a link to false Web onto popular Web page. If the victim is using Web-enabled email, the attacker could email the victim a pointer to false Web. Finally, the attacker could trick a web search engine into indexing part of a false Web.

Have you ever received an e-mail that looked like this? From: Bank of America To: John Doe Subject: Your Online Banking Account is Inactive Your Online Banking Account is Innactive We closed your online access for security reasons. Click here to access your account We must verify your account information. Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender © 2004 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

Spoofing attacks in the physical world as well as the electronic world In the physical world, for example, there have been several incidents in which criminal copy the victim’s card and use the duplicate. In these attack people were befooled for the context what they saw, the location of the machine and the appearance of their electronic displays. People using computer system often makes security relevant decisions based on contextual clues they see. For example you might decide to type in you account number because you believe you are visiting your bank’s web page. This belief might arise because the page has a familiar look.

Context A browser presents many types of context that users might rely on to make decisions. Appearance – the appearance of an object might convey a certain impression. Name of Objects – people often deduce what is in a file by its name. Timing of Events – if 2 things happen at the same time, the user might think they are related. Is MICR0SOFT.COM or MICROSOFT.COM the correct address for Microsoft?

Consequences: Surveillance – the attacker can passively watch the traffic, recording which pages the victim visits and the contacts of those pages. ( This allows the attacker to observe any account numbers or passwords the victim enters .) Tampering – the attacker can modify any of the data traveling in either direction between the victim and the Web. ( The attacker would change the product number, quantity or ship to address .)

How the Attack Works: URL Rewriting Forms “ Secure” Connections

URL Rewriting: The attacker’s first trick is to rewrite all of the URLs on some web page so that they point to the attacker’s server rather than the real server. Assuming the attacker’s server is on the machine www.attacker.org , the attacker rewrites a URL by adding http://www.attacker.org to the front of the URL. For example, http://home.netscape.com becomes http://www.attacker.org/http://home.netscape.com . Once the attacker’s server has fetched the real document needed to satisfy the request, the attacker rewrites all of the URLs. in the document into the same special form. Then the attacker’s server provides the rewritten page to the victim’s browser. If the victim follows a link on the new page, the victim remains trapped in the attacker’s false web.

Forms: When the victim submits a form, the submitted data goes to the attacker’s server. The attacker’s server can observe and even modify the submitted data, doing whatever malicious editing desired, before passing it on to the real server.

“ Secure” Connections: Web spoofing works on both of the major browsers: Internet Explorer and Net Scape Navigator and is not prevented by “Secure” connections.The victim’s browser think everything is fine: it was told to access a URL at www.attacker.org . the secure connection indicator only gives the victim a false sense of security.The victim sees no indication that anything is wrong.

Competing the illusion The attack as described thus far is fairly effective, but not perfect. There is still some remaining context that can give the victim clues that the attack is going on. Such evidence is not too hard to eliminate because browsers are very customizable. The ability of a web page to control browser behavior is often desirable, but when the page is hostile it can be dangerous.

Remedies Follow a three part strategy: Disable JavaScript in your browser so the attacker will be unable to hide the evidence of the attack; Make sure your browser’s location line is always visible; Pay attention to the URLs displayed on your browser’s location line, making sure they always point to the server you think you are connected to.

Protecting yourself against e-mail or online fraud Don’t take anything for granted. Do not click on links you receive in an e-mail message asking for sensitive personal, financial or account information. Call the company directly to confirm requests for updating or verifying personal or account information. Do not share your ID’s or pass codes with anyone. Look for secure connections on Web sites. Always sign off Web sites or secure areas of Web Sites. When your computer is not in use, shut it down or disconnect it from the Internet.

Conclusion Current browsers don’t prevent web spoofing and there can be no secure electronic commerce on the web until web spoofing vulnerability has been addressed.

Web spoofing (1)

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