Attack Case Study1

Twitter, Facebook, Google and LiveJournal under attack Technology guardian.co.uk: "Google the latest victim of malicious online attacksMillions of users affected as Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google are attackedComments (48)
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Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 August 2009 22.26 BST Article historyA concerted attempt to crash a string of major websites appears to be underway, with malicious online attacks affecting services including Facebook, Twitter and Google.
The source of the strikes is not yet known, but they have already affected hundreds of millions of web users around the world.
Initial reports earlier today confirmed that Twitter had been affected by a denial of service attack, where vast numbers of computers are simultaneously pointed at a victim's website in order to overwhelm its servers.
But after reports that Facebook was suffering from unexpected problems, it has emerged that several major companies were also victims of a simultaneous attack, including some Google sites and the blogging service LiveJournal.
A Google spokesman said that the company's systems helped protect it from damage, and that neither Google.com nor Gmail suffered any impact: 'We are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack.'"

Attack Case Study2

Government computers under attack - SC Magazine US: "Based on data provided to USA Today by US-CERT, unauthorized access to government computers and installations of hostile programs rose from a combined 3,928 incidents in 2007 to 5,488 in 2008.

The culprits seem to be after military secrets, said Brad Curran, Frost & Sullivan senior aerospace & defense industry analyst. They want to steal technology, or in a new strategy, what he calls asymmetric warfare.

“With our military capabilities, these groups cannot compete or stand toe to toe, so they look for asymmetric gaps to exploit,” Curran told SCMagazineUS.com. “State actors want to exploit information gaps on our networks, and read or alter our email.”"

Major Types af Attack

2. Enumerate types of attacks and their brief descriptions.

Ans.

• Malicious code-include execution of worms, viruses, Trojan horses
• Back door-attacker gains access to a system through an access path that bypasses usual security control
• Cracking-attempts to reverse-calculate a password
• Denial-of-service-attacker sends a such large number of connection or information request
• Spoofing-an intruder sends message to a computer with an IP address that indicates that message is coming from a trusted host
• Man-in-the-middle or TCP hijacking-attacker sniffs packets from the network, modifies them, insert them back into the network
• Spam-attacks involving sending unsolicited commercial e-mail
• Mail Bomb-attacker routes large quantities of e-mail to the target
• Sniffer-programs or devices that can monitor data traveling over a network
• Social engineering-attacker uses social skills to convince people reveal access credentials or other valuable information
• Buffer Overflow-involving an application error that occurs when more data is sent to a buffer than it can handle.
• Timing attack-attacks that work by exploring the contents of a Web browser's cache.

Source: Michael E. Whitman and Herbert J. Mattord, Principles of Information Security, Second Edition,Thompson Course Technology, 2005