Ethical Hacking And Attacking Computer Science Essay

Ethical Hacking And Attacking Computer light EssayIt is debatable, if hacking bottomland be respectable or not, the term Hacking over time has been associated with destructive occupation.These atomic number 18 whatsoever of the terms apply in the context of hacking which provides better clarity, Hacker is aroundbody who enjoys learning hacking for a defensive purpose an ethical hacker is the security professional who exercises his skills for a defensive purpose. The term cracker refers to a person who utilizes his hacking skills for destructive purpose.The ethical question here is in regard to the physical activity of hacking which is sometimes hard to differentiate from cracking. The main difference being, Ethical hacker just identifies vulnerabilities and does not wiretap them unlike a cracker.Ethical hacking is the process adopted by ethical hackers to discover the vulnerabilities compriseing in data out cable systems direct environments.With the growth of internet , computer security has become a major concern for business. Organizations exact ethical hackers who mass think like a cracker to simulate a real conduct hacking scenario they make use of same tools and techniques of that of crackers without damaging / compromising the exquisite culture thitherby maintaining the rightfulness and confidentiality of the formation.Ethical hacker should have outstriplent programming and networking skills. They evaluate the security of tar do and update the validation regarding the discovered vulnerabilities along with recomm finish upations to mitigate them.Anatomy of a HackInitially, Hacking meant having extraordinary skills to break into the organisation. However straight off there atomic number 18 lots of automated freew be tools available on internet qualification it possible for anybody having the proclivity to hack succeed in breaking into the system.These are the 5 arranges every hacker must know. haoma 1 Anatomy of an AttackReconn aissanceReconnaissance is the preparatory phase where an overtureer compiles study closely the target system prior to launching the flak. This phase might also involve network examine either internal or external without any authorization.One of the bureaus for gathering teaching during this phase may involve Social engineering. A fond engineer is a person who smooth-talks and persuades people to get around personal / sensitive information such as passwords, security policies etc. Social engineering is one and only(a) of the easiest ways to hack as it requires no technical skills and one of the hardest forms of flaming to defend against as humankind are the weakest link in the security chain. All security measures interpreted care by the organization goes in vain when the employees get social engineered. Detecting social engineering attacks are difficult, as there is no tool to detect such attempts, in most of the cases victim themselves are not aware having revealed s ensitive information. Rebecca and Jessica are the common terms apply, which refer to people who are easy target for social engineering attacks such as a receptionist or a support executive.Dumpster diving is another way of gathering information. It is the process of looking for discarded sensitive information in an organization thrash. It is one of the impelling ways of gathering information as it may provide assailants with fifty-fifty more sensitive information such as username, password, ATM slip, social security number, Bank statements.It is important that an organization has appropriate policies in place to protect their assets and also provide proper guidance to employees on the same.Reconnaissance technique can be classified into active and passive reconnaissance.In passive reconnaissance, the assaulter does not interact with the system directly but uses social engineering or dumpster diving as a mean to gather information. Where as in a active reconnaissance, the assai lant makes use of tools for port scan, network scanning to get the details of the application, in operation(p) system etc. Often reconnaissance phase overlaps with the scanning phase. seeScanning precedes the actual attack and is one of the important phase of information gathering where in the assailant gathers information about the targets IP address , operating system , system architecture , run cartroad in the system in order to find various ways to intrude into targets system. The strategy to launch the attack is based on the gathered information. The take a chance of an organization is considered high in the scanning phase as it enables access to the network.Different types of scanning arePort Scanning Procedure for sending the o draw up ports and the services running on the target system.Network Scanning -Procedure for identifying IP addresses, active hosts on a network either to attack them or as a network security assessment.Vulnerability Scanning -Automates method to identify the known vulnerabilities present in the system and the network. some(prenominal) of the important tools utilise during this phase are Nmap which is used for port scanning it also offers a variety of advanced features such as remote OS detection.Nessus is a exposure scanner which detects the local flaws, uninstalled patches and weakness in network hosts. Nessus has a security vulnerability database which is updated on a daily basis. It carries out development of security checks for recent security holes.CEH scanning methodological analysisThe diagram below shows the sequence of steps followed in order to scan any network although scanning method may differ based on the objective of the attack. The Attacker starts with checking for the live systems in the network. erstwhile he finds the live system, looks for any open port present in the system to identify the services running on it. The next phase is OS fingerprinting which is nothing but gathering operating system infor mation about the target system. Post which the attacker scans for vulnerabilities present in the target operating system and exploit it. The attacker may also choose to probe the network by making use of proxies. variety 2 CEH Scanning MethodologyGaining AccessThis is one of the most important phases for an attack as this is where the actual attack is planted. Therefore the business risk is highest in this phase. Although not a needful phase as an attacker need not always gain access to cause violate like in denial of service attacks.The main aim in this phase is to obtain ideal privileges such as system privilege to execute commands to access sensitive information.Maintaining AccessOnce the attacker gains access into the system or the network, he tries to retain his ownership on the compromised system and periodically attack it. Typically in this phase the attacker tries to install Key loggers to capture the keyboard strokes, sniffers to capture network traffic, rootkits at the kernel level to gain super user access and Trojan horse to gain recurrent backdoor access, also download the password files to access the system at a later time. Once the Trojans are in place, the attacker can assume to have gained total control of the system.During this phase the attackers might even harden the system against other attackers by fixing the vulnerability which allowed them to access the system or the network. clarification TracksThis is where the attacker tries to cover the evidence of his activities for various reasons like maintaining access or legal actions. During this phase the attacker deletes the system logs anticipateing the system administrator from monitoring the unusual activity, Rootkits are installed as they are effective in covering tracks and also because in some cases they disable logging.Other techniques like Steganography which is used to hide the data in a image or a file, are made used by the attacker in order to cover tracksTypical Hacking Tech niquesThere are several ways an attacker can gain access into the system such asOperating system attacksApplication Level attacks take wrap code erroneousnessMisconfiguration attacksGoogle HackingGoogle Hacking is the art of creating complex search queries in order to gather information of the target system. Google is the primary tool used for Google hacking. Advanced Google operators are used to filter information.Google hacking database identifies files containing password, sensitive directories, defenceless web pages, error messages containing sensitive information, pages containing firewall logs etcFigure 3 Google advanced search optionBasics of Google Hacking to a lower place are some of the basic ways Google is used for hackingDirectory Listing Attack Webpage often accidentally displays files and directories that exist on the web server when top level index file is missing or remove as directory listing is not taken care of. Most of the times they do not prevent users from downloading files or accessing sensitive information without authorization. Locating directory listing in Google is very straight forward.A oppugn of Intitle Index.of is the universal search for directory listingFigure 4 Google hacking for Directory ListingAn attacker can make use of this information to access sensitive information of the application.Information DisclosureError messages can disclose a lot of sensitive information about the target like the operating system, network architecture, user information etc.A query of intitle error fetched 4,070,000 resultsFigure 5 Google hacking for Information DisclosureBelow is the error message displayed by an application.Figure 6 Error message displayed from Google hacking queryThe error message reveals sensitive information about the target system such as the application is built in asp.net, IIS 4.0, MYSQL database. An attacker can now launch attacks that are vulnerable to these technologies.Sensitive InformationHere are some of the Google search syntaxs to crawl for Sensitive information such as passwordsfiletype xls inurl password.xls -Looks for username and password in ms excel format.intitle Index of master.passwd -index the master password pageindex of / backup- Looks for the index backup file on server)intitle index.of passwd.bak Looks for the index backup password files.intitle Index of pwd.db- Looks for database password filesinurl user.xls intext password- Looks for url that save username and passwords in spread sheet files turn up Digger, which explores Googles cache to look for susceptibilities ,errors, security loopholes on website and Gooscan which automates queries against Google search engine are some of the other tools used for Google hacking.Certified Ethical Hacker Certification Course (CEH)CEH is the professional certification provided by the international council E-Commerce consultants (EC-Council).Figure 6 CEH ProcessApart from EC council, there are other certified hacking course taken by some well known Hackers like Ankit Fadia Certified Ethical Hacker (AFCEH) and also some other vendors like karROX Certified Ethical Hacker Course.Ethical Hacking ServicesAs part of ethical hacking services, saveetration testing which is nothing but creating a real life hacking scenario and trying to break into the system is offered by various vendors. Different tools, technique and methodologies are used to gain entry into that application. The service offered could be either a black box testing (where only the application URL is given) or a grey box testing (where a dummy user account with least privilege is created for the pen testers).Penetration testing will be carried over by a team of dedicated ethical hackers.Some of the key benefits of penetration testing areFind security loopholes which cannot be found through operable testing.Identify business logic flaws which cannot be detected by Code Review.Real world subterfuge of hacking thereby revealing soft targets for possible attacks.Meet Regulatory Compliance like PCI, HIPAA, GLBA and ISO regulatory compliance. lessening in web application development security flaws.Development of effective mitigation strategies based on your specific environmentThe Pen test report provides recommended remediations for the identified attack.Follows the industry standards for security such as OWASP TOP 10 and SANS 25.Commercial tools like Cenzic, Acunetix, and IBM Rational Appscan are some of the widely used tools for Pen Test.Social Engineering Testing is offered as complementary service by some vendors which tests the organizations human firewall by gaining access to an organization and its assets by tricking key personnel over communications medium such as telephone, email, chat, bulletin boards, etc.AcknowledgementVikram Related Knowledge Briefs or ReferencesHave to check.SummaryIn recent times Web applications are the target of various forms of attacks. According to a Gartner report 70% of the security attacks are targeted on the web application. Competition is so high that enterprises cant ignore the risk associated with their vulnerable application. Loss incurred could vary from monetary losses to loss of credibility. In certain cases it could mean end of business. You cannot stop an attacker from hacking, the only thing you can do is make it harder to get in.Ethical hackers are the security professionals who use their hacking skills for defensive purpose. The process of ethical hacking would depend on, what is that organization is trying to protect, against whom and how much or resources the organization is ready to spend. The hacking tools are meant for research and educational purpose only and should not be used for destructive purpose.Your Name then enter a short two or three line biography, including your BU/practice and location.Was the information contained in this Knowledge Brief useful? 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