Security Plus Exam Objectives 601
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Phishing
fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information or data, by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Smishing
When someone tries to trick you into giving them your private information via a text or SMS message.
Vishing
Using social engineering over the telephone system to gain access to private personal and financial information for the purpose of financial reward
Spam
irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent to a large number of Internet users, for illegitimate advertising, and other activities such as phishing, and spreading malware
SPIM
Spam delivered through instant messaging (IM) instead of through e-mail messaging
Spear Phishing
the act of sending emails to specific and well-researched targets while pretending to be a trusted sender
Dumpster Diving
exploration of a system's trash bin for the purpose of finding details in order for a hacker to have a successful online assault.
Shoulder Surfing
When someone watches over your shoulder to nab valuable information as you key it into an electronic device.
Pharming
cyberattack intended to redirect a website's traffic to another, fake site.
Tailgating
Social engineering attempt by cyber threat actors in which they trick employees into helping them gain unauthorized access into the company premises.
Eliciting Information
Procedures or techniques involving interacting with and communicating with others that is designed to gather knowledge or inform
Whaling
Spear phishing that focuses on one specific high level executive or influencer
Prepending
Prepend is a word that means to attach content as a prefix. For example, a prepend command could be used in a scripting language that a programmer would enter into a certain function or code module. It would add certain characters of text to the beginning of some variable or object.
Identity Fraud
identity fraud is the use of stolen information such as making fake ID's and fake bank accounts
Invoice Scams
using fraudulent invoices to steal from a company
Credential Harvesting
the use of MITM attacks, DNS poisoning, phishing, etc. to amass large numbers of credentials (username / password combinations) for reuse.
Reconnaissance
- Information gathering about a target network
Hoax
Cyber hoax scams are attacks that exploit unsuspecting users to provide valuable information, such as login credentials or money.
Impersonation
typically involves an email that seems to come from a trusted source.
Watering hole attack
security exploit in which the attacker seeks to compromise a specific group of end users by infecting websites that members of the group are known to visit. The goal is to infect a targeted user's computer and gain access to the network at the target's place of employment.
Typo squatting
type of cybersquatting used by imposters that involve registering domains with intentionally misspelled names of popular web addresses to install malware on the user's system
Pretexting
the practice of presenting oneself as someone else in order to obtain private information.
Influence campaigns
- Combining conventional warfare with cyberwarfare
Hybrid warfare
Planned, coordinated marketing efforts using one or more social media platforms.
Social Media Campaign
Authority: an attacker may try to appear to have a certain level authority. Intimidation: may try to make the victim think that something terrible is going to happen if they don't comply with the attacker's wishes. Consensus: An attacker may try to sway the mind of a victim using names they are familiar with, saying that such ones provided them information (they are fishing for) in the past and you should be able to do the same. Scarcity: An attacker may try to set a time limit on a victim so that they can comply with their wishes by a certain deadline. Familiarity: they make you familiar with them on the phone and make you want to do things for them. Trust: The attacker in this case can claim to be a friend or close associate of someone you may know very well and that's trusted. Urgency: When attackers want you to act and not think, they want you to do what they want as quickly as possible so that there's no time to spot all the red flags.
Principles:
a program or file designed to be disruptive, invasive and harmful to your computer.
Malware
Software that encrypts programs and data until a ransom is paid to remove it.
Ransomware
Independent computer programs that copy themselves from one computer to other computers over a network
Worms
program that installs itself on a computer, typically without the user's informed consent
potentially unwanted program (PUP)
Software that uses legitimate programs to infect a computer. It does not rely on files and leaves no footprint, making it challenging to detect and remove.
Fileless virus
A computer controlled by an attacker or cybercriminal which is used to send commands to systems compromised by malware and receive stolen data from a target network
command and control
self-propagating malware that infects its host and connects back to a central server(s).
Bots
Malware to remain in place for as long as possible, quietly mining in the background.
Cryptomalware
A computer program or part of a program that lies dormant until it is triggered by a specific logical event.
logic bomb
Type of malware that infects your PC or mobile device and gathers information about you, including the sites you visit, the things you download, your usernames and passwords, payment information, and the emails you send and receive.
Spyware
software that tracks or logs the keys struck on your keyboard, typically in a covert manner so that you don't know that your actions are being monitored.
Keyloggers
type of malware that allows covert surveillance, a backdoor for administrative control and unfettered and unauthorized remote access to a victim's machine.
Remote Access Trojan
software program, typically malicious, that provides privileged, root-level (i.e., administrative) access to a computer while concealing its presence on that machine
Rootkit
refers to any method by which authorized and unauthorized users are able to get around normal security measures and gain high level user access (aka root access) on a computer system, network, or software application.
Backdoor
Any type of attack in which the attacker attempts to obtain and make use of passwords illegitimately.
Password Attack
An attack method that takes all the words from a dictionary file and attempts to log on by entering each dictionary entry as a password.
Spraying password attack
an attempt to guess a password by attempting every possible combination of characters and numbers in it
Dictionary password attack
an attack on a password that uses a large pregenerated data set of hashes from nearly every possible password
brute force password attack (offline and online)
1. Tainted training for machine learning (ML) 2. Security of machine learning algorithms
Rainbow Tables
1. Birthday: 2. Collision: 3. Downgrade:
Plaintext/unencrypted password attack
1. Server-side 2. Cross-site
Malicious universal serial bus (USB) cable
Some users with Bluetooth-enabled mobiles use this technology to send anonymous text messages to strangers.
Malicious flash drive
A set of standards primarily for smartphones and smart cards that can be used to establish communication between devices in close proximity.
Card cloning
A 24-bit value used in WEP that changes each time a packet is encrypted.
Skimming
A hierarchical system for naming resources on the Internet.
Adversarial artificial intelligence (AI)
Technique used by criminals to alter DNS records and drive users to fake sites, to committing phishing.
Supply-chain attacks
An attack that uses many computers to perform a DoS attack.
Cloud-based vs. on-premises attacks
programming language you can use to create macros
Cryptographic attacks
a sophisticated, possibly long-running computer hack that is perpetrated by large, well-funded organizations such as governments
Privilege escalation
Current or former employee, contractor or other partner that has or had authorized access and intentionally misused that access
Cross-site scripting
A protester seeking to make a political point by leveraging technology tools, often through system infiltration, defacement, or damage.
Injections
Individuals who want to break into computers to create damage, yet lack the advanced knowledge of computers and networks needed to do so.
Structured query language (SQL)
APTs, and nation states have a penchant for long-term attacks, which requires this which only major organizations or government can manage over time.
Dynamic link library
This can be simple or multifold in nature. A script kiddie is just trying to make a technique work. A more skilled threat actor is usually pursuing a specific objective, such as trying to make a point as a hacktivist. At the top of the intent pyramid is the APT threat actor, whose intent or motivation is at least threefold.
Lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP)
Information from media (newspapers, television), public government reports, professional and academic publications, and other openly available.
Extensible markup language (XML)
- unusual outbound traffic - anomalies in privileged account - geographic irregularities - login failures - swells in database read volume - large html responses - many requests for one file - mismatched port-applications - suspicious registry changes - spikes in dns requests from one host
Pointer/object dereference
system that enables the sharing of attack indicators between the US government and the private sector as soon as the treat is verified
Directory traversal
the use of data warehouses and complex algorithms to forecast future events, based on historical trends and calculated probabilities
Buffer overflows
A document published by the IETF that details information about standardized Internet protocols and those in various development stages.
Race conditions(Time of check/time of use)
1. System integration 2. Lack of vendor support
Error handling
Firmware: Operating system: Applications:
Improper input handling
Technology used to scan applications for potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
Replay attack (session replays)
The application of vulnerability scanning to network devices to search for vulnerabilities at the network level.
Integer overflow
Red-Team: Blue-Team: White-Team: Purple-Team:
Request forgeries
using a central control program separate from network devices to manage the flow of data on a network
Application programming interface (API) attacks
Commission/Decommission of assets from the time it is installed, until the time it is decommissioned and disposed.
Resource exhaustion
Techniques used while coding to provide as much security as possible.
Memory leak
An open community dedicated to enabling organizations to conceive, develop, acquire, operate, and maintain applications that can be trusted.
Secure sockets layer (SSL) stripping
Using technology to automate IT processes.
Driver manipulation
Video cameras and receivers used for surveillance in areas that require security monitoring.
Shimming
Guards: Robot sentries: Reception: Two-person integrity/control
Refactoring
Biometrics: Electronic: Physical: Cable Locks:
Pass the hash
Burning: Shredding: Pulping: Pulverizing: Degaussing: Third-party solutions :
Wireless Evil Twin
An algorithm that uses elliptic curves instead of prime numbers to compute keys.
Rogue access point
Authenticated: Unauthenticated: Counter:
Bluesnarfing
Stream: Block:
Bluejacking
Audio: Video: Image:
Disassociation
Enables processing of encrypted data without the need to decrypt the data. It allows the cloud customer to upload data to a cloud service provider for processing without the requirement to decipher the data first.
Jamming
Modern malware tries to hide itself. Encrypted data hides the active malware code. Decryption occurs during execution.
Radio frequency identifier (RFID)
Password hashing. Protect the original password. Add salts to randomize the stored password hash.
Near Field Communication (NFC)
Confirm the authenticity of data. Digital signature provides both integrity and non-repudiation.
Initialization Vector (IV)
Manuel code review:
On-path attack(Man-in-the-middle)
Third-party updates: Auto-update:
Layer 2 attacks
Opal:
Address resolution protocol poisoning
Forward: Reverse:
Media access control flooding
Port taps:
MAC Cloning
Cost: Need for segmentation: Open systems Interconnection (OSI) Layers
Domain Name System (DNS)
Privacy enhanced mail (PEM)
Domain jacking
Online vs. offline CA:
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