3. Various tools used for the attack
Proxy severs and Anonymizers
Phishing
Password cracking
Keyloggers and spywares
Virus and Worms
Trojan horses and Backdoors
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. An Anonymizer
An anonymizer or 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
7. 2. Phishing
Phishing is a type of cyberattack that uses
fraudulent emails, text messages, phone calls or
websites to trick people into sharing sensitive
data, downloading malware or otherwise exposing
themselves to cybercrime.
Stealing personal and financial data
Also can infect systems with viruses
A method of online ID theft
8. 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
9. 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.
10. 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
11. 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
12. 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 …
14. 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
15. 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
16. 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.
17. 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
18. 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, @#$%^&*()_+|~-
=`{}[]:";'<>?,./)
Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long.
Are not a word in any language, slang, dialect, jargon, etc.
Are not based on personal information, names of family, etc.
Passwords should never be written down or stored on-line.
Try to create passwords that can be easily remembered.
One way to do this is create a password based on a song title, affirmation, or other
phrase.
For example, the phrase might be: "This May Be One Way To Remember"
and the password could be: "TmB1w2R!" or "Tmb1W>r~" or some other variation.
19. Random passwords
Secure Password Generator
Password Length:
Include Symbols:
( e.g. @#$% )
Include Numbers:
( e.g. 123456 )
Include Lowercase Characters:
( e.g. abcdefgh )
Include Uppercase Characters:
( e.g.ABCDEFGH )
Exclude Similar Characters:
( e.g. i, l, 1, L, o, 0, O )
Exclude Ambiguous Characters:
( { } [ ] ( ) / ' " ` ~ , ; : . < > )
Generate On The Client Side:
( do NOT send across the Internet )
Auto-Select:
( select the password automatically )
Save My Preference:
( save all the settings above for later use )
Load My Settings Anywhere:
URL to load my settings on other computers quickly
Your New Password:
Remember your password:
Remember your password with the first letters of each word in this sentence.
To prevent your passwords from being hacked by social engineering, brute force or dictionary attack method, you should notice that:
1. Do not use the same password for multiple important accounts.
2. Use a password that has at least 16 characters, use at least one number, one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter and one special symbol.
3. Do not use the names of your families, friends or pets in your passwords.
4. Do not use postcodes, house numbers, phone numbers, birthdates, ID card numbers, social security numbers, and so on in your passwords.
5. Do not use any dictionary word in your passwords.
6. Do not use something that can be cloned( but you can't change ) as your passwords, such as your fingerprints.
7. Do not let your Web browsers( FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, IE ) store your passwords, since all passwords saved in Web browsers can be revealed easily.
8. Do not log in to important accounts on the computers of others, or when connected to a publicWi-Fi hotspot,Tor, freeVPN or web proxy.
9. Do not send sensitive information online via HTTP or FTP connections, because messages in these connections can be sniffed with very little effort.You should use encrypted connections such as HTTPS and SFTP whenever possible.
10.When travelling, you can encrypt your Internet connections before they leave your laptop, tablet, mobile phone or router. For example, you can set up a privateVPN on your own server( home computer, dedicated server orVPS ) and connect to it.Alternatively, you can set up an encrypted SSH tunnel between your
router and your home computer( or a remote server of your own ) with PuTTY and connect your programs( e.g. FireFox ) to PuTTY.Then even if somebody captures your data as it is transmitted between your device( e.g. laptop, iPhone, iPad ) and your server with a packet sniffer, he'll won't be able to steal your data and
passwords from the encrypted streaming data.
11. How secure is my password? Perhaps you believe that your passwords are very strong, difficult to hack. But if a hacker has stolen your username and the MD5 hash value of your password from a company's server, and the rainbow table of the hacker contains this MD5 hash, then your password will be cracked quickly.
To check the strength of your passwords and know whether they're inside the popular rainbow tables, you can convert your passwords to MD5 hashes on this MD5 hash generator, then decrypt your passwords by submitting these hashes to an online MD5 decryption service. For instance, your password is
"0123456789A", using the brute-force method, it may take a computer almost one year to crack your password, but if you decrypt it by submitting its MD5 hash( C8E7279CD035B23BB9C0F1F954DFF5B3 ) to a MD5 decryption website, how long will it take to crack it?You can perform the test yourself.
12. It's recommended to change your passwords every 10 weeks.
13. It's recommended that you remember a few master passwords, store other passwords in a plain text file and encrypt this file with 7-Zip, GPG or a disk encryption software such as BitLocker, or manage your passwords with a password management software.
14. Encrypt and backup your passwords to different locations, then if you lost access to your computer or account, you can retrieve your passwords back quickly.
15.Turn on 2-step authentication whenever possible.
16. Do not store your critical passwords in the cloud.
17.Access important websites( e.g. Paypal ) from bookmarks directly, otherwise please check its domain name carefully, it's a good idea to check the popularity of a website with Alexa toolbar to ensure that it's not a phishing site before entering your password.
18. Protect your computer with firewall and antivirus software, download software from reputable sites only, and verify the MD5 or SHA1 checksum of the installation package whenever possible.
19. Be careful when using online paste tools and screen capture tools, do not let them to upload your passwords to the cloud.
20. If there are important files on your computer, and it can be accessed by others, check if there are hardware keyloggers( e.g. wireless keyboard sniffer ), software keyloggers and hidden cameras when you feel it's necessary.
21. If you're a webmaster, do not store the users passwords in the database, you should store the salted hash values of passwords inste
20. 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.
21. 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
22. Hardware keyloggers
installing a hardware circuit between the keyboard and
the computer that logs keyboard stroke activity
(keyboard hardware).
Target- ATMs
23. 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.
24. 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.
26. 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
27. 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
28. 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
29. 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.
30. 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
31. 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
32. Examples of Backdoor trojans
Back Orifice : for remote system
administration
Bifrost : can infect Win95 through Vista,
execute arbitrary code
SAP backdoors : infects SAP business objects
Onapsis Bizploit: Onapsis Bizploit is an SAP
penetration testing framework to assist security
professionals in the discovery, exploration,
vulnerability assessment and exploitation
phases of specialized SAP security assessment
33. 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