Malware attack Social engineering attack

Types of Cyber Attacks
Software Development Security

Types of Cyber Attack
Malware attack
Social
engineering
attacks(Phishing )
Distributed denial
of service (DDoS)
Man-in-the-
middle attack
(MitM)
Password attacks
Advanced
persistent threats
(APT)

Malware
attack
• A malware attack is a common cyberattack
where malware (normally malicious
software) executes unauthorized actions on
the victim’s system. The malicious software
(a.k.a. virus) encompasses many specific
types of attacks such as ransomware,
spyware, command and control, and more.

Three main
aspects of
Malware
• Objective: What the malware is designed to
achieve
• Delivery: How the malware is delivered to
the target
• Concealment: How the malware avoids
detection

Objectives of
Malware
• Exfiltrate Information- Stealing data, credentials,
payment information, Malware focused on this type
of theft can be extremely costly to a person,
company, or government target that falls victim.
• Disrupt Operations - Actively working to “cause
problems” for a target’s operation is another
objective seen in malware.
• Demand Payment- Some malware is focused on
directly extorting money from the
target. Ransomware is a type of malware that
attempts to prevent a target from accessing their
data (usually by encrypting files on the target) until
the target “pays up.”

Main types
of malware
attack
vectors
• Trojan Horse: This is a program which appears
to be one thing (e.g. a game, a useful
application, etc.) but is really a delivery
mechanism for malware.
• Virus: A virus is a type of self-propagating
malware which infects other programs/files (or
even parts of the operating system and/or hard
drive) of a target via code injection.
• Worm: Malware designed to propagate itself
into other systems is a worm. While virus and
trojan horse malware are localized to one
infected target system, a worm actively works to
infect other targets (sometimes without any
interaction on the user’s behalf).

Main types
of malware
attack
vectors
• Ransomware Arguably the most common form of
malware, ransomware attacks encrypt a device’s data
and holds it for ransom. If the ransom isn’t paid by a
certain deadline, the threat actor threatens to delete or
release the valuable data (often opting to sell it on the
dark web).
• Spyware Cybercriminals use spyware to monitor the
activities of users. By logging the keystrokes a user inputs
throughout the day, the malware can provide access to
usernames, passwords, and personal data. Spyware
often leads to credential theft, which in turn can lead to
a devastating data breach. It often originates in corrupt
files, or through downloading suspicious files.
• Bots is a software program that performs an automated
task without requiring any interaction. Bots can execute
attacks much faster than humans ever could.

Best practices
against malware
attacks
• Continuous User Education
• Use Reputable A/V Software
• Ensure Your Network is Secure
• Perform Regular Website Security Audits
• Create Regular, Verified Backups
•

Malware attack Social engineering attack

Social
engineering
attacks(Phishing )
• Social engineering is the term used for a
broad range of malicious activities
accomplished through human interactions.
• Social engineering attacks work by
psychologically manipulating users into
performing actions desirable to an attacker
or divulging sensitive information.

Social
engineering
attack
techniques
• Phishing scams are email and text message
campaigns aimed at creating a sense of urgency,
curiosity or fear in victims.
• Spear phishing is a more targeted version of the
phishing scam whereby an attacker chooses specific
individuals or enterprises.
• Baiting attacks use a false promise to pique a
victim’s greed or curiosity. They lure users into a
trap that steals their personal information or inflicts
their systems with malware.
• Scareware involves victims being bombarded with
false alarms and fictitious threats.
• Piggybacking and tailgating both refer to a type of
attack in which an authorized person allows an
unauthorized person access to a restricted area.

Common
Phishing
Technique in
Somalia
• Voice phishing (vishing) phone calls may be
automated message systems recording all your
inputs. Sometimes, a live person might speak
with you to increase trust and urgency.
• SMS phishing (smishing) texts or mobile app
messages might include a web link or a prompt
to follow-up via a fraudulent email or phone
number.
• Email phishing is the most traditional means of
phishing, using an email urging you to reply or
follow-up by other means. Web links, phone
numbers, or malware attachments can be used.

Social
engineering
prevention
• Don’t open emails and attachments from
suspicious sources.
• Use multifactor authentication
• Be wary of tempting offers
• Keep your antivirus/antimalware software
updated

Discussion
Is Mobile Begging considered a Scam?

Denial-of-
service
attack (DoS
attack)
• A Denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is
a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator
seeks to make a machine or network
resource unavailable to its intended users by
temporarily or indefinitely disrupting the
services of a host connected to a network.
• Denial of service is typically accomplished by
flooding the targeted machine or resource
with superfluous requests in an attempt to
overload systems and prevent some or all
legitimate requests from being fulfilled.

Distributed
Denial of
service
(DDoS)
• A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack
is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal
traffic of a targeted server, service or
network by overwhelming the target or its
surrounding infrastructure with a flood of
Internet traffic.
• DDoS attacks don’t attempt to breach your
security perimeter. Rather, a DDoS attack
aims to make your website and servers
unavailable to legitimate users.

DDoS
botnets
• A botnet is a collection of hijacked
connected devices used for cyber
attacks that are controlled remotely from a
Command & Control Center (C&C).
• Attackers use malware and other techniques
to compromise a device, turning it into a
“zombie” in the attacker’s botnet.
• Botnets enable attackers to carry out DDoS
attacks by harnessing the power of many
machines and obscuring the source of the
traffic.

DDoS for hire:
• DDoSsers,
• booters and
• stressers

There are 3 types
of DDoS Attacks:
• Volume-based attacks,
• Protocol attacks, and
• Application layer attacks.

DDoS
Protection
Techniques
• Reduce Attack Surface Area -One of the first
techniques to mitigate DDoS attacks is to
minimize the surface area that can be attacked
thereby limiting the options for attackers and
allowing you to build protections in a single
place. We want to ensure that we do not expose
our application or resources to ports, protocols
or applications from where they do not expect
any communication.
• Deploy Firewall and load balancer - A good
practice is to use a Web Application Firewall
(WAF) against attacks, such as SQL injection or
cross-site request forgery, that attempt to
exploit a vulnerability in your application itself.

DDoS
Protection
Techniques
• An organization typically has two choices when
setting up cloud-based DDoS protection:
• On-demand cloud DDoS mitigation: These
services activate after the in-house team, or the
provider detects a threat. If you suffer a DDoS,
the provider diverts all traffic to cloud resources
to keep services online.
• Always-on cloud DDoS protection: These
services route all traffic through a cloud
scrubbing center (at the cost of minor latency).
This option is best suited for mission-critical
apps that cannot afford downtime.

Man-in-the-
middle
attack
(MitM)
• A man in the middle (MITM) attack is a general term for
when a perpetrator positions himself in a conversation
between a user and an application—either to eavesdrop
or to impersonate one of the parties, making it appear as
if a normal exchange of information is underway.
• The goal of an attack is to steal personal information,
such as login credentials, account details and credit card
numbers. Targets are typically the users of financial
applications, SaaS businesses, e-commerce sites and
other websites where logging in is required.
• Broadly speaking, a MITM attack is the equivalent of a
mailman opening your bank statement, writing down
your account details and then resealing the envelope and
delivering it to your door.

MITM attack
progression(Interception)
• Interception- The first step intercepts user traffic through the
attacker’s network before it reaches its intended destination.
1. IP spoofing involves an attacker disguising himself as an
application by altering packet headers in an IP address. As a
result, users attempting to access a URL connected to the
application are sent to the attacker’s website.
2. ARP spoofing is the process of linking an attacker’s MAC
address with the IP address of a legitimate user on a local
area network using fake ARP messages. As a result, data
sent by the user to the host IP address is instead
transmitted to the attacker.
3. DNS spoofing, also known as DNS cache poisoning, involves
infiltrating a DNS server and altering a website’s address
record. As a result, users attempting to access the site are
sent by the altered DNS record to the attacker’s site.

MITM attack
progression
(Decryption)
• Decryption- After interception, any two-way SSL traffic
needs to be decrypted without alerting the user or
application. A number of methods exist to achieve this
1. HTTPS spoofing sends a phony certificate to the
victim’s browser once the initial connection request to
a secure site is made.
2. SSL BEAST (browser exploit against SSL/TLS) targets a
TLS version 1.0 vulnerability in SSL. Here, the victim’s
computer is infected with malicious JavaScript that
intercepts encrypted cookies sent by a web
application.
3. SSL hijacking occurs when an attacker passes forged
authentication keys to both the user and application
during a TCP handshake. This sets up what appears to
be a secure connection when, in fact, the man in the
middle controls the entire session.

Man in the
middle attack
prevention
• Avoiding WiFi connections that aren’t
password protected.
• Paying attention to browser notifications
reporting a website as being unsecured.
• Immediately logging out of a secure
application when it’s not in use.
• Not using public networks (e.g., coffee
shops, hotels) when conducting sensitive
transactions.

Different
Types of
Password
Attacks
• Two types of phishing attacks:
• Regular Phishing -victims receive a phishing mail
asking them to reset passwords due to security
reasons. Hackers are successful when targets don’t
confirm the sender’s authenticity before changing
their passwords.
• Spear Phishing – directed victim to click or
download a link in an email from a known sender.
The link takes you to a malicious look-a-like website
where you log in, inadvertently sharing your
password with threat actors.
•

Different
Types of
Password
Attacks
• Brute Force Attacks - In a brute force attack, hackers
steal passwords with the hit-and-try method using
special software.
• Here are two variations of such cyberattacks:
• Password Spraying
• In a password spray attack, attackers use a selection
of common passwords on a massive number of
accounts. They attempt to crack passwords of
accounts in bulk, reducing the risk of getting traced.
• Dictionary Attacks- bad actors use a list of common
words and phrases from a dictionary. This is the
opposite of a brute force password attack as they
don’t use character-by-character attempts.

Different
Types of
Password
Attacks
• Credential Stuffing - In credential stuffing,
cybercriminals use stolen credentials to
break passwords set for cybersecurity. This method
is based on simple human psychology: We can’t
remember too many passwords; so, let’s use the
same password for every account, right? Once
hackers succeed in breaching one of your accounts,
they use the same passwords on your different
accounts.
• Keylogger Attacks attackers use malware to attempt
keylogger or keystroke logger password attacks. In
cybersecurity, These attacks are among the most
dangerous as they reveal even the strongest and
most secure passwords. Hackers record keystrokes
when you enter them.

Advanced
persistent
threats (APT)
• An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a cyber-
attack in which the adversary operates undetected
inside a compromised network for an extended
period of time after gaining unauthorized access.
• APT attacks are distinguished by their use of highly
sophisticated tools and techniques to evade
detection, steal credentials, and move through the
network to reach high-value assets.
• These tools and techniques require significant
financial and human capital to acquire or develop,
implying that APT attacks are designed to target the
meanest network defenses protecting important
organizations and their assets.

APT Attack
Stages
• Stage 1: Target Selection and External
Reconnaissance
• An APT attack always begins with identifying targets
that satisfy the attacker’s objectives. Once a target
has been selected, the attackers will perform a
reconnaissance of the target to discover potential
points of entry (attack vectors) and gather as much
information on the target as possible.
• Stage 2: Initial Access
• After thorough preparation, the attacker attempts
to gain unauthorized access to the target’s network
by exploiting one or more viable attack vectors. One
of the most common ways this is achieved is
through highly deceptive social engineering
techniques like spear-phishing emails.

APT Attack
Stages
• Stage 3: Malware Execution
• After gaining access to the victim’s network, the attacker
executes the first malware payload on the compromised
machine (patient zero). This initial malware payload is
used to achieve a variety of broader goals such as
internal reconnaissance, defense evasion, and command
and control communication.
• Stage 4: Privilege Escalation and Lateral Movement
• Once the attacker establishes a firm foothold on the
compromised system, they begin to harvest access
credentials (user, domain admin, and service accounts)
to escalate their privileges. Escalated privileges give the
attacker greater freedom and cover to operate and move
laterally through the network to reach high-value targets
that meet their objectives.

APT Attack
Stages
• Stage 5: Data Exfiltration and Damage
Infliction
• After reaching the high-value assets, the APT
attacker begins exfiltrating the data from the
target’s network to their own infrastructure.
The data is typically transferred to a central
location and packaged into an archive. The
archive is encrypted to conceal it from deep
packet inspection during exfiltration and
compressed and chunked so that the data is
exfiltrated in small enough quantities to
resemble normal traffic activity, lowering any
suspicion.

APT Detection
and Protection
Using NDR
• Many cybersecurity solutions such as
firewalls, endpoint security, intrusion
detection and prevention systems may no
longer offer adequate protection against APT
attacks. Essentially, these tools are designed
to prevent and detect known threats
using known malware signatures,
known indicators of compromise (IoC),
and known attack patterns. With APT threat
actors constantly updating their tools, TTPs,
and infrastructure, what is really needed is a
solution to detect non-signature-based
malware and unknown attack activity and
patterns.

What is
Network
Detection and
Response
(NDR)?
• Network detection and response (NDR) is a security
solution that performs real-time monitoring and
analysis of network-wide traffic to detect and
respond to malware and behavioral-based malicious
activity in the network.
• The crux of NDR is detecting behavioral-based
malicious activity. As stealthy as they are, APT
activities generate network traffic in all stages of an
attack, and as long as activities generate traffic, they
can be detected. NDR leverages the power of
machine learning, artificial intelligence, and
behavioral analytics to analyze network traffic and
detect granular deviations from normal network
activity to uncover APT threats.

How to
Prevent Cyber
Attacks?
• Change your passwords regularly and use strong alphanumeric
passwords which are difficult to crack. Refrain from using too
complicated passwords that you would tend to forget. Do not
use the same password twice.
• Update both your operating system and applications regularly.
This is a primary prevention method for any cyber attack. This
will remove vulnerabilities that hackers tend to exploit. Use
trusted and legitimate Anti-virus protection software.
• Use a firewall and other network security tools such as
Intrusion prevention systems, Access control, Application
security, etc.
• Avoid opening emails from unknown senders. Scrutinize the
emails you receive for loopholes and significant errors.
• Make use of a VPN. This makes sure that it encrypts the traffic
between the VPN server and your device.

How to
Prevent Cyber
Attacks?
• Regularly back up your data. According to many security
professionals, it is ideal to have three copies of your data on two
different media types and another copy in an off-site location (cloud
storage). Hence, even in the course of a cyber attack, you can erase
your system’s data and restore it with a recently performed backup.
• Employees should be aware of cybersecurity principles. They must
know the various types of cyberattacks and ways to tackle them.
• Use Two-Factor or Multi-Factor Authentication. With two-factor
authentication, it requires users to provide two different
authentication factors to verify themselves. When you are asked for
over two additional authentication methods apart from your
username and password, we term it as multi-factor authentication.
This proves to be a vital step to secure your account.
• Secure your Wi-Fi networks and avoid using public Wi-Fi without
using a VPN.
• Safeguard your mobile, as mobiles are also a cyberattack target.
Install apps from only legitimate and trusted sources, make sure to
keep your device updated.

Malware attack Social engineering attack

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