IS4560
Unit 1 Assignment 1
Web-based attacks – the increasing pervasiveness of Web browser applications along with increasingly common, easily exploited Web browser application security vulnerabilities has resulted in the widespread growth of Web-based threats. Attackers wanting to take advantage of client-side vulnerabilities no longer need to actively compromise specific networks to gain access to those computers. Instead, they can focus on attacking and compromising websites to mount additional, client-side attacks.
Data breaches that could lead to identity theft, by sector - the danger of data breaches is of particular importance for organizations that store and manage large amounts of personal information. not only can compromises that result in the loss of personal data undermine customer and institutional confidence, result in costly damage to an organization’s reputation, and result in identity theft that may be costly for individuals to recover from, they can also be financially debilitating to organizations.
Bot-infected computers - Bots allow for a wide range of functionality and most can be updated to assume increased functionality by downloading new code and features. Attackers can use bots to perform a variety of tasks, such as setting up denial-of-service (DoS) attacks against an organization’s website, distributing spam and phishing attacks, distributing spyware and adware, propagating malicious code, and harvesting confidential information that may be used in identity theft from compromised computers—all of which can lead to serious financial and legal consequences. Attackers favor bot-infected computers with a decentralized C&C model because they are difficult to disable and allow the attackers to hide in plain site among the massive amounts of unrelated traffic occurring over the same communication channels, such as p2p. Most importantly, botnet operations can be lucrative for their controllers because bots are also inexpensive and relatively easy to propagate.