Cyber Attack

We are living in a digital era and now a days, almost everyone use computer and internet. Due to most of things are easily accessible online to us and we can perform various tasks digitally, our dependency on digital things has increased vastly, which has led to the increase in illegal computer activity, due to which people who are less aware of how things work in digital world are becoming venerable to such type of crimes. These crimes includes sharing of personal information publically or stealing of money from bank account.

A cyber-attack (which is usually performed by Cyber Criminals) is exploitation of computer systems, technology-dependent organizations and networks. Cyber-attacks use malicious code to alter computer code, logic or data, resulting in consequences that can compromise data of user or organization and lead to cybercrime, like information and identity theft. The people who commit cybercrime are called as Cyber Criminals. They commit such crimes in hope of gathering important data, or generating profits, etc. Cyber Crime is punishable by law in India, According to the IT ACT.

Various types of Cyber Attacks:

Cyber Attack can be classified into two Categories which are:

  • Web Based Attack
  • System Based Attack

Web Based Attack:

These are the attacks which occur on a website or web applications. It can be further classified into following type of attacks:

  • Injection Attack: It is the attack in which some data will be injected into a web application to manipulate the application and fetch the required information. E.g. SQL Injection, code Injection, log Injection, XML Injection etc.
    • SQL Injection – The cybercriminal exploits a vulnerability by inserting a malicious SQL statement in an entry field. The system does not filter the user input correctly for characters in an SQL statement. Criminals use SQL injection on websites or any SQL database.
    • XML Injection – an XML injection is an attack that can corrupt the data. After the user provides input, the system accesses the required data via a query. The problem occurs when the system does not properly scrutinize the input request provided by the user. Criminals can manipulate the query by programming it to suit their needs and can access the information on the database.
  • DNS Spoofing: In this a data is introduced into a DNS resolver’s cache causing the name server to return an incorrect IP address, diverting traffic to the attacker’s computer or any other computer. The DNS spoofing attacks can go on for a long period of time without 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: It is a type of attack which attempts to steal sensitive information like user login credentials and credit card number. It occurs when an attacker is masquerading as a trustworthy entity in electronic communication.
  • Denial of Service: It is an attack which meant to make a server or network resource unavailable to the users. 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.
  • Man in the Middle Attack: It is a type of attack that allows an attacker to intercepts 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 Attack:

These are the attacks which are intended to compromise a computer or a computer network. Some of the system-based attacks are:

  • Sniffing: Sniffing is similar to eavesdropping. Criminals can do network sniffing with a software application, hardware device, or a combination of the two. Sniffing views all network traffic and it can target a specific protocol, service, or even string of characters such as a login or password.
  • Spoofing: Spoofing is an impersonation attack, and it takes advantage of a trusted relationship between two systems. If two systems accept the authentication accomplished by each other, an individual logged onto one system might not go through an authentication process again to access the other system. An attacker can take advantage of this arrangement by sending a packet to one system that appears to have come from a trusted system. Since the trusted relationship is in place, the targeted system may perform the requested task without authentication.
  • Trojan-Horse: It is a malicious program that occurs unexpected changes to computer setting and unusual activity, even when the computer should be idle. It misleads the user of its true intent. It appears to be a normal application but when opened/executed some malicious code will run in the background.
  • Worm: It is a type of malware whose primary function is to replicate itself to spread to uninfected computers. It works same as the computer virus.
  • Virus: It is a type of malicious software program that spread throughout the computer files without the 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.
  • Buffer Overflow: It occurs when data goes beyond the limits of a buffer. Buffers are memory areas allocated to an application. By changing data beyond the boundaries of a buffer, the application accesses memory allocated to other processes. This can lead to a system crash, data compromise, or provide escalation of privileges.
  • Zero Day Attack: Itis a computer attack that tries to exploit software vulnerabilities that are unknown or undisclosed by the software vendor to the public.