Chapter 1 Cyber Security
Chapter 1 Cyber Security
Chapter 1 Cyber Security
Cyber Security
Code: PEC-CS702E
Unit I:
Introduction:
o Network Security: It involves implementing the hardware and software to secure a computer
network from unauthorized access, intruders, attacks, disruption, and misuse. This security helps
an organization to protect its assets against external and internal threats.
o Application Security: It involves protecting the software and devices from unwanted threats.
This protection can be done by constantly updating the apps to ensure they are secure from
attacks. Successful security begins in the design stage, writing source code, validation, threat
modeling, etc., before a program or device is deployed.
o Information or Data Security: It involves implementing a strong data storage mechanism
to maintain the integrity and privacy of data, both in storage and in transit.
o Identity management: It deals with the procedure for determining the level of access that
each individual has within an organization.
o Operational Security: It involves processing and making decisions on handling and securing
data assets.
o Mobile Security: It involves securing the organizational and personal data stored on mobile
devices such as cell phones, computers, tablets, and other similar devices against various
malicious threats. These threats are unauthorized access, device loss or theft, malware, etc.
o Cloud Security: It involves in protecting the information stored in the digital environment or
cloud architectures for the organization. It uses various cloud service providers such as AWS,
Azure, Google, etc., to ensure security against multiple threats.
o Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning: It deals with the processes,
monitoring, alerts, and plans to how an organization responds when any malicious activity is
causing the loss of operations or data. Its policies dictate resuming the lost operations after any
disaster happens to the same operating capacity as before the event.
o User Education: It deals with the processes, monitoring, alerts, and plans to how an
organization responds when any malicious activity is causing the loss of operations or data. Its
policies dictate resuming the lost operations after any disaster happens to the same operating
capacity as before the event.
We can break the CIA model into three parts: Confidentiality, Integrity, and
Availability. It is actually a security model that helps people to think about various parts
of IT security.
Confidentiality
Integrity
This principle ensures that the data is authentic, accurate, and safeguarded from unauthorized
modification by threat actors or accidental user modification. If any modifications occur, certain measures
should be taken to protect the sensitive data from corruption or loss and speedily recover from such an
event. In addition, it indicates to make the source of information genuine.
Availability
This principle makes the information to be available and useful for its authorized people always. It
ensures that these accesses are not hindered by system malfunction or cyber-attacks.
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Malware
Malware means malicious software, which is the most common cyber attacking tool. It is used
by the cybercriminal or hacker to disrupt or damage a legitimate user's system. The following are
the important types of malware created by the hacker:
o Virus: It is a malicious piece of code that spreads from one device to another. It can clean files
and spreads throughout a computer system, infecting files, stoles information, or damage device.
o Spyware: It is a software that secretly records information about user activities on their
system. For example, spyware could capture credit card details that can be used by the
cybercriminals for unauthorized shopping, money withdrawing, etc.
o Trojans: It is a type of malware or code that appears as legitimate software or file to fool us into
downloading and running. Its primary purpose is to corrupt or steal data from our device or do
other harmful activities on our network.
o Ransomware: It's a piece of software that encrypts a user's files and data on a device, rendering
them unusable or erasing. Then, a monetary ransom is demanded by malicious actors for
decryption.
o Worms: It is a piece of software that spreads copies of itself from device to device without
human interaction. It does not require them to attach themselves to any program to steal or
damage the data.
o Adware: It is an advertising software used to spread malware and displays advertisements on our
device. It is an unwanted program that is installed without the user's permission. The main
objective of this program is to generate revenue for its developer by showing the ads on their
browser.
o Botnets: It is a collection of internet-connected malware-infected devices that allow
cybercriminals to control them. It enables cybercriminals to get credentials leaks, unauthorized
access, and data theft without the user's permission.
What is Cyberspace?
general. Cyber Threats can come from remote locations by unknown parties or even within an
organization by trusted users.
Common Sources of Cyber Threats
Nation states—hostile countries can launch cyber attacks against local companies and
institutions, aiming to interfere with communications, cause disorder, and inflict damage.
Terrorist organizations—terrorists conduct cyber attacks aimed at destroying or abusing
critical infrastructure, threaten national security, disrupt economies, and cause bodily harm to citizens.
Criminal groups—organized groups of hackers aim to break into computing systems for
economic benefit. These groups use phishing, spam, spyware and malware for extortion, theft of private
information, and online scams.
Hackers—individual hackers target organizations using a variety of attack techniques. They are
usually motivated by personal gain, revenge, financial gain, or political activity. Hackers often develop
new threats, to advance their criminal ability and improve their personal standing in the hacker
community.
Malicious insiders—an employee who has legitimate access to company assets, and abuses
their privileges to steal information or damage computing systems for economic or personal gain. Insiders
may be employees, contractors, suppliers, or partners of the target organization. They can also be
outsiders who have compromised a privileged account and are impersonating its owner.
Cyber warfare can take many forms, but all of them involve either the destabilization or destruction
of critical systems. The objective is to weaken the target country by compromising its core systems.
1. Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten,
the loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political or ideological gains
through threat or intimidation.
2. Acts of deliberate, large-scale disruption of computer networks, especially of personal
computers attached to the Internet by means of tools such as computer viruses, computer
worms, phishing, malicious software, hardware methods, programming scripts can all be
forms of internet terrorism.
3. Cyberterrorism can be also defined as the intentional use of computers, networks, and
public internet to cause destruction and harm for personal objectives.
4. xperienced cyberterrorists, who are very skilled in terms of hacking can cause massive
damage to government systems and might leave a country in fear of further attacks.
Critical infrastructure security is the area of concern surrounding the protection of systems,
networks and assets whose continuous operation is deemed necessary to ensure the security of
a given nation, its economy, and the public's health and/or safety.
The UK internet industry and Government recognized the need to develop a series of Guiding
Principles for improving the online security of the ISPs' customers and limit the rise in cyber-
attacks. Cybersecurity for these purposes encompasses the protection of essential information,
processes, and systems, connected or stored online, with a broad view across the people,
technical, and physical domains.
These Principles recognize that the ISPs (and other service providers), internet users, and UK
Government all have a role in minimizing and mitigating the cyber threats inherent in using the
internet.
These Guiding Principles have been developed to respond to this challenge by providing a
consistent approach to help, inform, educate, and protect ISPs' (Internet Service Provider's)
customers from online crimes. These Guiding Principles are aspirational, developed and
delivered as a partnership between Government and ISPs. They recognize that ISPs have
different sets of customers, offer different levels of support and services to protect those
customers from cyber threats.
1. Economy of mechanism
2. Fail-safe defaults
3. Least Privilege
4. Open Design
5. Complete mediation
6. Separation of Privilege
7. Least Common Mechanism
8. Psychological acceptability
9. Work Factor
10. Compromise Recording
1. Economy of mechanism
This principle states that Security mechanisms should be as simple and small as possible.
The Economy of mechanism principle simplifies the design and implementation of
security mechanisms. If the design and implementation are simple and small, fewer
possibilities exist for errors. The checking and testing process is less complicated so that
fewer components need to be tested.
Interfaces between security modules are the suspect area which should be as simple as
possible. Because Interface modules often make implicit assumptions about input or
output parameters or the current system state. If the any of these assumptions are
wrong, the module's actions may produce unexpected results. Simple security
framework facilitates its understanding by developers and users and enables the
efficient development and verification of enforcement methods for it.
2. Fail-safe defaults
The Fail-safe defaults principle states that the default configuration of a system should
have a conservative protection scheme. This principle also restricts how privileges are
initialized when a subject or object is created. Whenever access, privileges/rights, or
some security-related attribute is not explicitly granted, it should not be grant access to
that object.
Example: If we will add a new user to an operating system, the default group of the user
should have fewer access rights to files and services.
3. Least Privilege
This principle states that a user should only have those privileges that need to complete
his task. Its primary function is to control the assignment of rights granted to the user,
not the identity of the user. This means that if the boss demands root access to a UNIX
system that you administer, he/she should not be given that right unless he/she has a
task that requires such level of access. If possible, the elevated rights of a user identity
should be removed as soon as those rights are no longer needed.
4. Open Design
This principle states that the security of a mechanism should not depend on the secrecy
of its design or implementation. It suggests that complexity does not add security. This
principle is the opposite of the approach known as "security through obscurity." This
principle not only applies to information such as passwords or cryptographic systems
but also to other computer security related operations.
Example: DVD player & Content Scrambling System (CSS) protection. The CSS is a
cryptographic algorithm that protects the DVD movie disks from unauthorized copying.
5. Complete mediation
The principle of complete mediation restricts the caching of information, which often
leads to simpler implementations of mechanisms. The idea of this principle is that access
to every object must be checked for compliance with a protection scheme to ensure
that they are allowed. As a consequence, there should be wary of performance
improvement techniques which save the details of previous authorization checks, since
the permissions can change over time.
Whenever someone tries to access an object, the system should authenticate the access
rights associated with that subject. The subject's access rights are verified once at the
initial access, and for subsequent accesses, the system assumes that the same access
rights should be accepted for that subject and object. The operating system should
mediate all and every access to an object.
Example: An online banking website should require users to sign-in again after a certain
period like we can say, twenty minutes has elapsed.
6. Separation of Privilege
This principle states that a system should grant access permission based on more than
one condition being satisfied. This principle may also be restrictive because it limits
access to system entities. Thus before privilege is granted more than two verification
should be performed.
Example: If there is a need to be accessed a file or application by more than one user,
then these users should use separate channels to access these resources, which helps to
prevent from unforeseen consequences that could cause security problems.
8. Psychological acceptability
This principle states that a security mechanism should not make the resource more
complicated to access if the security mechanisms were not present. The psychological
acceptability principle recognizes the human element in computer security. If security-
related software or computer systems are too complicated to configure, maintain, or
operate, the user will not employ the necessary security mechanisms. For example, if a
password is matched during a password change process, the password changing
program should state why it was denied rather than giving a cryptic error message. At
the same time, applications should not impart unnecessary information that may lead to
a compromise in security.
Example: When we enter a wrong password, the system should only tell us that the user
id or password was incorrect. It should not tell us that only the password was wrong as
this gives the attacker information.
9. Work Factor
This principle states that the cost of circumventing a security mechanism should be
compared with the resources of a potential attacker when designing a security scheme.
In some cases, the cost of circumventing ("known as work factor") can be easily
calculated. In other words, the work factor is a common cryptographic measure which is
used to determine the strength of a given cipher. It does not map directly to
cybersecurity, but the overall concept does apply.
Example: Suppose the number of experiments needed to try all possible four character
passwords is 244 = 331776. If the potential attacker must try each experimental
password at a terminal, one might consider a four-character password to be satisfactory.
On the other hand, if the potential attacker could use an astronomical computer capable
of trying a million passwords per second, a four-letter password would be a minor
barrier for a potential intruder.
Black hat hacker Cracker (Black hat): A hacker who gains unauthorized access to computer systems for personal
gain. The intent is usually to steal corporate data, violate privacy rights, transfer funds from bank accounts etc.
Grey hat: A hacker who is in between ethical and black hat hackers. He/she breaks into
computer systems without authority with a view to identify weaknesses and reveal them to the system owner.
Script kiddies
Script kiddies: A non-skilled person who gains access to computer systems using already
made tools.
Hacktivist
Hacktivist: A hacker who use hacking to send social, religious, and political, etc.
messages. This is usually done by hijacking websites and leaving the message on the hijacked website.
Phreaker
Scanning
Footprinting & Reconnaissance
Enumeration
System Hacking
Escalation of Privileges
Covering Track
Skills of an Ethical Hacker
A skilled Ethical Hacker should hold a collection of technical and non-technical skills.
Technical Skills
1. The Ethical Hackers must have strong knowledge in all Operating Systems like
Windows, Linux, and Mac.
2. The Ethical Hackers should be skilled with Networking and have a strong knowledge of
basic and detailed concepts in technologies, software, and hardware applications.
3. Ethical Hackers must know all kinds of attacks.
Non-Technical Skills
1. Communication Skills
2. Learning Ability
3. Problem-solving skills
1. Malicious Insiders
A malicious insider is an employee who exposes private company information and/or
exploits company vulnerabilities.
2. Missing or Poor Encryption
Data encryption translates data into another form that only people with access to a secret
key or password can read. Encrypted data is commonly referred to as ciphertext, while
unencrypted data is called plaintext. The purpose of data encryption is to protect digital
data confidentiality
Apps and protocols sending login credentials over your network pose a significant security threat. An
attacker connected to your network can easily locate and utilize these credentials for lateral movement.
For example, in the Target attack, adversaries were able to steal Active Directory credentials and
propagate their attack into the enterprise payment network.
4. Phishing Phishing is a cybercrime tactic in which the targets are contacted by email, telephone or
text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive
data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords.
5. Ransomware Ransomware is a form of cyber-extortion in which users are unable to access their
data until a ransom is paid. Users are shown instructions for how to pay a fee to get the decryption key.
2. Information assurance is the practice of assuring information and managing risks related
to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information.
3. Information assurance includes protection of the integrity, availability, authenticity and
confidentiality of user data.
1. Integrity
2. Availability
3. Authentication
4. Confidentiality
5. Non repudiation
Integrity
Integrity involves assurance that all information systems are protected
Availability
Availability means those who need access to information, are allowed to access it. Information
should be available to only those who are aware of the risks associated with information
systems.
Authentication
Authentication involves ensuring those who have access to information are who they say they
are. authentication include methods such as two-factor authentication, strong passwords,
biometrics, and other devices.
Confidentiality
IA involves the confidentiality of information, meaning only those with authorization may view
certain data.
Non repudiation
Assurance that the sender of information is provided with proof of delivery and the recipient is
provided with proof of the sender's identity
A vulnerability assessment is the testing process used to identify and assign severity levels to as
many security defects as possible in a given timeframe.
A penetration test (pen test) is an authorized simulated attack performed on a computer system
to evaluate its security. Penetration testers use the same tools, techniques, and processes as
attackers to find and demonstrate the business impacts of weaknesses in a system.
1. Security Policy: One of the best ways to prevent insider threats is to include procedures in
your security policy to prevent and detect misuse.
2. Physical Security : One of the best ways to prevent insider theft is to physically keep
employees away from your critical infrastructure. Giving your employees a place to lock
up their sensitive information
3. Use Multifactor Authentication: implementing strong, multifactor authentication
measures to extremely sensitive applications within your company.
4. Segment LANs : It can be very difficult to find the many choke points inside LANs so
instead, segment LANs with firewalls which will create a zone of trust at all points that each LAN
connects with the corporate LAN.
5. Seal Information Leaks : can also use software that will scan your policy and alert you
when employees violate this policy on your network. There is also software available that will
scan the text of outgoing emails to ensure that your employees are not sharing company secrets.
6. Investigate Unusual Activities: Many times, an employee betrays a company’s trust,
they don’t expect to get cause because most companies are too busy looking for outside
threats. there are monitoring laws so make sure you familiarize yourself with these laws before
you break any of them.
7. Implement Perimeter Tools & Strategies : Make sure you patch web and email
servers and get rid of any unused services. Also, try locking down configurations to
increase your security protocol.
Social engineering is a manipulation technique that exploits human error to gain private
information, access, or valuables.
social engineering attackers have one of two goals:
1. Sabotage: Disrupting or corrupting data to cause harm or inconvenience.
2. Theft: Obtaining valuables like information, access, or money.
social engineering targets/Attack ?
2. Phishing : Phishing is a cybercrime tactic in which the targets are contacted by email,
telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into
providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card
details, and passwords.
3. Baiting : Baiting attacks may leverage the offer of free music or movie downloads to trick users
into handing their login credentials.
4. Quid Pro Quo : quid pro quo attacks promise something in exchange for information.
5. Tailgating (piggybacking) : It is a type of physical security breach in which an unauthorized
person follows an authorized individual to enter secured premises.
Investigators use a variety of techniques and proprietary forensic applications to examine the copy they've made of a
compromised device. They search hidden folders and unallocated disk space for copies of deleted, encrypted or
damaged files.
Reverse steganography. Steganography is a common tactic used to hide data inside any type of digital file,
message or data stream. Computer forensic experts reverse a steganography attempt by analyzing the
data hashing that the file in question contains. If a cybercriminal hides important information inside an image or
other digital file, it may look the same before and after to the untrained eye, but the underlying hash or string of
data that represents the image will change.
Stochastic forensics. Here, investigators analyze and reconstruct digital activity without the use of digital
artifacts. Artifacts are unintended alterations of data that occur from digital processes. Artifacts include clues
related to a digital crime, such as changes to file attributes during data theft. Stochastic forensics is frequently
used in data breach investigations where the attacker is thought to be an insider, who might not leave behind
digital artifacts.
Cross-drive analysis. This technique correlates and cross-references information found on multiple computer
drives to search for, analyze and preserve information relevant to an investigation. Events that raise suspicion
are compared with information on other drives to look for similarities and provide context. This is also known
as anomaly detection.
Live analysis. With this technique, a computer is analyzed from within the OS while the computer or device is
running, using system tools on the computer. The analysis looks at volatile data, which is often stored in cache
or RAM. Many tools used to extract volatile data require the computer in to be in a forensic lab to maintain the
legitimacy of a chain of evidence.
Deleted file recovery. This technique involves searching a computer system and memory for fragments of files
that were partially deleted in one place but leave traces elsewhere on the machine. This is sometimes known
as file carving or data carving.
Advantages
Cyber forensics ensures the integrity of the computer.
Through cyber forensics, many people, companies, etc get to know about such crimes, thus taking proper
measures to avoid them.
Cyber forensics find evidence from digital devices and then present them in court, which can lead to the
punishment of the culprit.
They efficiently track down the culprit anywhere in the world.
They help people or organizations to protect their money and time.
The relevant data can be made trending and be used in making the public aware of it.
What are the required set of skills needed to be a cyber forensic expert?
2. Objectives : Objectives section is used to outline all tasks that an investigation has planned to
complete.
3. Computer Evidence Analyzed : The Computer Evidence Analyzed section is where all
gathered evidences and its interpretations are introduced. It provides detailed information.
4. Relevant Findings :This section of Relevant Findings gives summary of evidences found
of probative Value When a match is found between forensic science material recovered from a
crime scene e.g., a fingerprint, a strand of hair, a shoe print, etc.
6. Investigative Leads : Investigative Leads performs action items that could help to discover
additional information related to the investigation of case. The investigators perform all
outstanding tasks to find extra information if more time is left.
ISO/IEC 27001:2013 specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually
improving an information security management system within the context of the organization. It also includes
requirements for the assessment and treatment of information security risks tailored to the needs of the organization.
The requirements set out in ISO/IEC 27001:2013 are generic and are intended to be applicable to all organizations,
regardless of type, size or nature.
Cyber Law also called IT Law is the law regarding Information-technology including computers and
the internet. It is related to legal informatics and supervises the digital circulation of information,
software, information security, and e-commerce.
•Organizations are now able to carry out e-commerce using the legal infrastructure provided by
the Act.
•Digital signatures have been given legal validity and sanction in the Act.
•It allows Government to issue notifications on the web e-governance.
•It gives authority to the companies or organizations to file any form, application, or any other
document with any office, authority, body, or agency owned or controlled by the suitable
Government in e-form using such e-form as may be prescribed by the suitable Government.
•The IT Act also addresses the important issues of security, which are so critical to the success
of electronic transactions.
•Cyber Law provides both hardware and software security.
A. Fraud:
Consumers depend on cyber laws to protect them from online fraud. Laws are made to prevent
identity theft, credit card theft, and other financial crimes that happen online.
B. Copyright : Copyright violation is an area of cyber law that protects the rights of individuals and
companies to profit from their creative works.
C. Defamation : Defamation laws are civil laws that save individuals from fake public statements
that can harm a business or someone’s reputation. When people use the internet to make
statements that violate civil laws, that is called Defamation law.
D. Harassment and Stalking: When a person makes threatening statements again and again
about someone else online, there is a violation of both civil and criminal laws. Cyber lawyers both
prosecute and defend people when stalking occurs using the internet and other forms of electronic
communication.
E. Freedom of Speech: Cyber lawyers must advise their clients on the limits of free speech
including laws that prohibit obscenity. Cyber lawyers may also defend their clients when there is a
debate about whether their actions consist of permissible free speech.
Intellectual Property (IP) simply refers to the creation of the mind. It refers to the possession of thought
or design by the one who came up with it. It offers the owner of any inventive design or any form of
distinct work some exclusive rights, that make it unlawful to copy or reuse that work without the owner’s
permission. It is a part of property law. People associated with literature, music, invention, etc. can use
it in business practices.
There are numerous types of tools of protection that come under the term “intellectual property”.
Notable among these are the following:
•Patent
•Trademark
•Geographical indications
•Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits
•Trade secrets
•Copyrights
•Industrial Designs
Cyberspace is the non-physical domain where numerous computers are connected through
computer networks to establish communication between them. With the expansion of technology,
cyberspace has come within reach of every individual. This fact led to the emergence of
cyberspace as a business platform and hence increases pressure on Intellectual Property.
1. The IP security (IPSec) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard suite of protocols
between 2 communication points across the IP network that provide data authentication, integrity,
and confidentiality.
2. It also defines the encrypted, decrypted and authenticated packets. The protocols needed for
secure key exchange and key management are defined in it.
Uses of IP Security –
IPsec can be used to do the following things:
Components of IP Security –