Network Attacks

There are different types of network attacks aimed at three pillers o network security: Confidentially, Integrity and availability.

Network attacks against confidentially

Attacker can many methods to compromise confidentially. Following are some of the common methods:

1.      Packet capturing (Packet sniffing)

Packet capturing is a type of network attack where the attacker captures the data packet (typically Ethernet frame) in travel. Once the data is captured, the attacker can read the sensitive data like passwords or card numbers, if the network traffic is not encrypted. The most widely used packet capture software is Wireshark.

Note: Wireshark is not hacking tool; it is a well-known network protocol analyser used to troubleshoot network problems. But hacker misuse Wireshark with bad intentions.

2.      Password attacks

Password based attacks are used to hack the passwords of users of a target computer to gain access. Two types of password attacks are dictionary based attack (where an attacker tries each of the words in a dictionary or commonly used passwords to hack the user password) and brute force attack (where an attacker tries every single possible password combinations using brute force hacking tools to hack the user password).

3.      Port scanning and ping sweeps

Port scanning is a type of network attack, where the attacker tries to discover the services running on a target computer by scanning the TCP/UDP port. Here the attacker tries to establish connection to the TCP/UDP port to find out which ports are open on a target computer. Finally attacker can attack and hack the target computer negotiating vulnerability  in that software product.

A ping sweep in another kind of network attack where the intruder sends ping ICMP ECHO packets to a range of IP address to find out which one respond with an ICMP ECHO REPLAY.  Thus the attacker can identify which computers are up and which compute are down.

4.      Dumpster diving

Dumpster diving is searching through company dumpsters for any information that can be useful for an attacker for attacking the network. Example: searching for employee names, software application product information, network infrastructure device make and models etc.

5.      Wiretapping

Wiretapping is type of network attack where the attacker hacks the telecommunication devices listen to the phone calls of others.

6.      Keylogger

A keylogger is a program that runs in the background of a computer, loging the user’s keystrokes. After a user enters a password, it is stored in the log created by the keylogger and forward to the hacker.

7.      Phishing and  Pharming

Phishing is an attempt to hack sensitive information (usually financial information like bank usrid/password credit card details etc), by sending unsolicited emails with faks URLs. Pharming is another network attack aimed at redirecting the traffic of one website to another website.

8.      Social Engineering

Social Engineering is type of attack in which someone with very good interactive skills manipulates other into revaling information about network that can be used to  steal data.