TYPES OF CYBER ATTACKS

A cyber-attack is an exploitation of a computer system and networks. It uses malicious codes to alter computer codes, logic or data and leads to cyber crimes, such as information and identity theft.

There are two categories of cyber-attacks, they are; web based and system based attacks.

WEB BASED ATTACKS

These are the attacks which occur on a website or web application. Some of the important web based attacks are as follows;

• INJECTION ATTACKS.

It is the attack in which some data will be injected into a web application to manipulate the application and fetch the required information. Example are, SQL injection, code injection, log injection, XML injection etc.

• DNS spoofing.

DNS spoofing is a type of computer security hacking, where by a data is introduced into a DNS resolver’s cache causing the  name server to return an incorrect IP address, diverting traffic to the attackers computer or any other computer. The DNS spoofing attacks can go on for a long period of time without it being detected and can cause serious security issues.

• SESSION HIJACKING.

It is a security attack on a user session over a protected network. Web applications create cookies to store the state and user sessions. By stealing the cookies an attacker can have access to all of the user data.

Phishing is a type of attack which attempts to steal sensitive information like user login credentials and credit card numbers. It occurs when an attacker is masquerading as a trustworthy entity in electronic communication.

• BRUTE FORCE.

It is a type of attack which uses trial and error method. This attack generates a large number of guesses and validates them to obtain actual data like user password and personal identification number. This attack may be used by criminals to crack encrypted data or by security analysts to test an organizations network security.

• DENIAL OF SERVICE.

It is an attack which is meant to make a server or network resources unavailable to the user. It accomplishes this by flooding the target with traffic or sending it information that triggers a crash. It uses the single system and single internet connection to attack a server. It can be classified into the following; volume based attack, its goal is to saturate the bandwidth of the attacked site and is measured in bits per second. Protocol attacks, it consumes actual server resources and is measured in packets. Application layer attacks, its goal is to crash the web server and is measured in request per second.

• DICTIONARY ATTACKS.

This type of attack uses the stored list of a commonly used password and validated them to get original pass word.

• URL INTERPRETATION ATTACK.

It is a type of attack where we can change the certain parts of a URL and one can make a web server to deliver web pages for which he is not authorized to browse.

• FILE INCLUSION ATTACK.

It is a type of attack that allows an attacker to access unauthorized or essential files which is available on the web server or to execute malicious files on the web server by making use of the include functionality.

• MAN IN THE MIDDLE ATTACK.

It is a type of attack that allows an attacker to intercept the connection between client and server and acts as a bridge between them. Due to this, an attacker will be able to read, insert and modify the data in the intercepted connection.

 SYSTEM BASED ATTACKS.

These are the attacks which are intended to compromise a computer or a computer network. Some of the important system based attacks are as follows;

It is a type of malicious software program that spread throughout the computer files without knowledge of a user. It is a self-replicating malicious computer program that replicates by inserting copies of itself into other computer programs when executed. It can also execute instructions that cause harm to the system.

It is a type of malware whose primary function is to replicate itself to spread to uninfected computers. It works the same as the computer virus. Worms often originate from emails attachments that appear to be from trusted senders.

• TROJAN HORSE.

It is a malicious program that occurs, causing unexpected changes to computer setting an unusual activity, even when the computer is idle. It misleads the user of its true intent. It appears to be a normal application but when opened or executed some malicious code will run in the background.

It is a method that bypasses the normal authentication process. A developer may create a backdoor so that an application or operating system can be accessed for trouble shooting or other purposes.

A bot (short for ‘robot’) is an automated process that interacts with other network services. Some bots program run automatically, while other only execute command when they receive specific input. Common examples of bot program are the crawler, chartroom bots and malicious bolts.