1.4 - Network Attacks

What is meant by the term 'blagging'?

• It is when fraudsters send emails pretending to be a bank or e-commerce site to try and find out your personal and financial details.  Messages are often urgent and have spelling mistakes.
• Sometimes called pretexting, done either face-to-face, by telephone or using a computer.  Criminals invent a scenario to get the victim to divulge information.
•   Finding out login names, passwords and pins by watching people at ATM’s, or in an office where employees enter passwords or when people pay for goods at tills and people watch the PINs being entered.
• Software that is deigned to corrupt files and stop your computer from working.

What is meant by the term 'shouldering'?

• Finding out login names, passwords and pins by watching people at ATM’s, or in an office where employees enter passwords or when people pay for goods at tills and people watch the PINs being entered.
• Sometimes called pretexting, done either face-to-face, by telephone or using a computer.  Criminals invent a scenario to get the victim to divulge information.
• It is when fraudsters send emails pretending to be a bank or e-commerce site to try and find out your personal and financial details.  Messages are often urgent and have spelling mistakes.

What is meant by the term 'phishing'?

• Finding out login names, passwords and pins by watching people at ATM’s, or in an office where employees enter passwords or when people pay for goods at tills and people watch the PINs being entered.
• Sometimes called pretexting, done either face-to-face, by telephone or using a computer.  Criminals invent a scenario to get the victim to divulge information.
• It is when fraudsters send emails pretending to be a bank or e-commerce site to try and find out your personal and financial details.  Messages are often urgent and have spelling mistakes.

This software is designed to disrupt the functioning of the computer, gain unauthorised access and gather information without the users knowledge - what is it?

• Applications sofware
• Systems software
• Malicious software
• Utility software

How does a virus infect a computer and how is it malicious?

• It is disguised as something legitimate like a computer game. Once inside it can log key strokes, record passwords and can allow someone to remote access your computer.
• Software that usually infects a computer system via email attachments or being attached to files on memory sticks. It requires human help to infect a computer. It can corrupt/delete files and slow your pc down.

How does a trojan horse infect a pc and how is it malicious?

• Software that is disguised as something legitimate like a computer game. Once inside it can log key strokes, record passwords and can allow someone to remote access your computer.
• Software that is similar to a virus, although it can infect your computer without human help, instead through security loopholes. Once inside your computer it can replicate itself across networks. It is malicious as it can slow your pc down, delete files and send documents via email.

What is meant by the term spyware?

• A type of spyware that causes adverts to pop-up on your screen. Some can be inappropriate. They waste your time and distract you from what you are doing.
• Malware that you may have received in an email. This can change the IP address of a domain name entered to a bogus one.
• Software similar to a 'Trojan' as it spies on what you are doing and passes this information back across the internet.
• Fraudsters sending emails pretending to be banks etc... recognised by : careless use of language, urgency, false links and attachments.

What is ransomware and how is it malicious?

• Software similar to a 'Trojan' as it spies on what you are doing and passes this information back across the internet.

• Programs that attempt to blackmail a user into making a payment to a hacker, If money isn't paid, the network can be shutdown.

• Software that is similar to a virus, although it can infect your computer without human help, instead through security loopholes. Once inside your computer it can replicate itself across networks. It is malicious as it can slow your pc down, delete files and send documents via email.

• Software that is disguised as something legitimate like a computer game. Once inside it can log key strokes, record passwords and can allow someone to remote access your computer.

What is a brute force attack?

• General attack on network - no specialist knowledge. Done by trial and error to obtain login names and passwords to allow hacker to access network.  Success is based on computer power and number of combinations tried.
• Designed to make a network or website grind to a halt by using 'Zombie' computers to flood them with useless network communication such as repeated login requests at the same time.
• Criminals use packet analysers or 'packet sniffers' to intercept data traffic. Criminals try and steal logins, passwords, credit card numbers.
• Websites use databases to store user details.User enters username and password - this is checked against SQL database.Criminals can bypass this using special commands.

What is meant by a denial of service (DOS) attack?

• Designed to make a network or website grind to a halt by using 'Zombie' computers to flood the network/websites with useless network communication such as repeated login requests at the same time.
• Criminals use packet analysers or 'packet sniffers' to intercept data traffic. Criminals try and steal logins, passwords, credit card numbers.