Cybersecurity Assessment Questions & Answers.
What is Cyber Security?
A necessary science for protecting people and their values from security threats over the internet
Threat
Possible danger
Possible Dangers for Computer systems
Viruses
Worms
Trojan Horses
Spyware
Adware
Backdoors
Logic bombs
others
Possible dangers for organizations (Companies, banks, etc)
Cyber Piracy
Denial of Service
Intrusion
Unauthorized access
Disclosure of information
Modification of data
Possible dangers for countries
Cyber Warfare
Cyber Vandalism
Cyber Espionage
Cyber Terrorism
Possible dangers monetary dangers
Computer Fraud
Phishing
Vishing
Identity theft
Theft of information
Theft of assets
Possible dangers for people
Cyber trolling
Cyber stalking
Cyber harassment
Cyber bullying
Cyber extortion
First electronic computers (year)
1940s
Start of computer industry (year)
1950s
Software comes into its own. Multi user systems emerged, needing mechanisms to protects systems from users
(year)
1960s
Age of the mainframe. Needing sensitive data protection, access control, encryption
(year)
1970s
Age of the PC. Multi Level Security (MLS), information flow, security research, viruses and worms
(year)
1980s
Age of the internet. Increased exposure to Hostile environments
(year)
1990s
Age of the web. The paradise of hackers
Communication security, network security, web security.
(year)
2000's
Starting point of computer security in 1972 dealing with the Air Force.
Anderson report.
Insider Fraud Case Study (1966)
Programmer for bank wrote code to ignore overdrafts in his bank account. Discovered when computer went down and account balances were processed manually.
Identity Fraud Case Study (1971)
Two competing companies with mutual customer. One company's employee obtains customers number that he uses to call companies. Calls competitor using that number pretending to be customer and requests codes and punch cards to be sent. Discovered when company asks customer about these things and customer has no idea about it.
Denial of Service Case Study (2004)
A worm spread through email and Kazza P2P File Sharing platform. Looked like a genuine error message. When opened created a denial-of-service attack on
Password Sniffing Case Study (1978)
Student wrote program for "time sharing" and left on flash drive sitting out for curious students to pick up. Upon execution, program would "crash" and then ask for username and password, obtaining users login information.
Telecommunication Fraud
First gen cell phones' user identifiers transmitted unprotected and were easy to intercept, used by hackers to make long distance calls, charged to the user
SMS Fraud
Text sent to number asking them to call back a number and they were then redirected to a long distance number and charged for it.
Attacks may exploit weak points of _____ beyond just technical weak points.
"Business model"
Security problems can rarely be ______ but they can be ______.
Eliminated, managed.
Reliability
Deals with accidental failures
Usability
addresses problems arising from operating mistakes made by users.
Security
Security deals with intentional failures: there is at some stage a decision by a person do something he is not supposed to do.
Protection of the assets of an organisation is the responsibility of
management.
To be effective, security policies must be supported by ________. They should issue a ________.
top management, security charter
Security Charter
A crisp document explaining general rules
______________________ should be part of the general security strategy.
Security awareness programs
Not every member in an organisation has to become a security expert, but all members should know
-Why security is important for themselves and for the organisation.
-What is expected of each member.
-Which good practices they should follow.
Price paid for security should not exceed
the value of the assets you want to protect.
To decide what to protect you should perform some kind of
risk analysis
Assets can include
Hardware, software, Data & Information, Services & revenue,Reputation of enterprise, trust, brand name, Employees' time
Hardware (As an asset) includes:
laptops, servers, routers, PDAs, mobile phones, smart cards
Software (as an asset) includes:
applications, operating systems, database systems, source code, object code
Data & Information (as an asset) includes:
essential data for running and planning your business, design plans, digital content, data about customers, ...
Damages can include:
Disclosure of information
Modification of data
Being unable to do your job because required resources are not available
Identity spoofing (identity "theft")
Unauthorised access to services
Lost revenue
Damaged reputation
Theft of equipment
...
Is this system secure?
Asking the wrong question. Need to be more specific about protection requirements... ie:
-Protect PC from virus and worm attacks?
-No unauthorized access to corporate LAN?
-Keep sensitive documents secret?
-Verify identity of partners in a business transaction?
Security policies formulate
security objectives
The NIST Computer Security handbook defines computer security as
"The protection afforded to an automated information system in order to attain the applicable objectives of preserving the integrity, availability and confidentiality of information system resources" (includes hardware, software, firmware, information/data, and telecommunications).
The CIA triad
Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability
Confidentiality (As Key security concept)
Preserving authorized restrictions on information access and disclosure, including means for protecting personal privacy and proprietary information
Integrity (As Key security concept)
Guarding against improper information modification or destruction, including ensuring information nonrepudiation and authenticity
Availability (As Key security concept)
Ensuring timely and reliable access to and use of information
Levels of Impact - Low
The loss could be expected to have a limited adverse effect on organizational operations, organizational assets, or individuals
Levels of Impact - Moderate
The loss could be expected to have a serious adverse effect on organizational operations, organizational assets, or individuals
Levels of Impact - High
The loss could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect on organizational operations, organizational assets, or individuals
Attacker only needs to find ________ while developers must find __________
one single weakness / all possible weaknesses
Users and system managers tend to not see the benefits of security
until a failure occurs
Security requires ______________ monitoring
regular and constant
An entity that attacks, or is a threat to, a system.
Adversary (Threat Agent)
An assault on system security that derives from an intelligent threat; that is, an intelligent act that is a deliberate attempt (especially in the sense of a method or technique) to evade security services and violate the security policy of a system.
Attack
An action, device, procedure, or technique that reduces a threat, a vulnerability, or an attack by eliminating or preventing it, by minimizing the harm it can cause, or by discovering and reporting it so that corrective action can be taken.
Countermeasure
An expectation of loss expressed as the probability that a particular threat will exploit a particular vulnerability with a particular harmful result
Risk
A set of rules and practices that specify or regulate how a system or organization provides security services to protect sensitive and critical system resources
Security Policy
Data contained in an information system; or a service provided by a system; or a sysem capability;
System Resource (Asset)
A potential violation of security; which exists when there is a circumstance capability, action, or event that could breach security and cause harm.
Threat
A flaw or weakness in a systems design
vulnerability
Assets of a computer system
Hardware, Software, Data, Communication facilities and networks
Some thing is Corrupted(Category of vulnerability) =
loss of integrity
Some thing is Leaky (Category of vulnerability)
loss of confidentiality
Some thing is Unavailable or very slow (Category of vulnerability)
loss of availability
Attack=
a threat carried out
attempt to learn or make use of information from the system that does not affect system resources
Passive Attack
attempt to alter system resources or affect their operation
Active attack
initiated by an entity inside the security perimeter
Insider attack
initiated from outside the perimeter
Outsider attack
Means used to deal with security attacks
Prevent
Detect
Respond
Recover
Exposure (intentional releases of sensitive information), interception (a determined hacker can gain access to communication traffic and other data transfers between two persons or entities. ) , interference (adversary gains information from analyzing the network traffic.
), intrusion(adversary gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data information.) cause
unauthorized disclosure
Masquerade (an attempt by an unauthorized user to gain access to a system by posing as an authorized user; ), falsification (a student may alter his or her grades on a school database), and repudiation(., a user denies sending or receiving data.) are threat actions that cause __________ threat consequences.
Deception
Incapacitation (physical destruction of a system hardware), corruption (Malicious software operates in such a way that system resources or services function in an unintended manner), obstruction (disabling communication links or altering communication
control information. ) are threat actions that cause _____ threat consequences
Obstruction
Misappropriation (a distributed denial of service attack,) and misuse (disabling or thwarting security functions of a service) are threat actions that cause ______ threat consequences
usurpation
a threat to confidentiality
Unauthorized disclosure
a threat to system integrity
Deception
a threat to availability to system integrity
disruption
a threat to system integrity
usurpation
Network Attack Surface
Vulnerabilities over an enterprise network, wide-area network, or the Internet
Software Attack Surface
Vulnerabilities in application, utility, or operating system code
Human Attack Surface
Vulnerabilities created by personnel or outsiders, such as social engineering, human error, and trusted insiders
Used to analyse how an attack is executed in detail. To get a clear picture of potential threats, attack trees can be constructed.
Attack trees
Computer security strategy consists of
Security policy, Security implementation, Assurance, Evaluation
Content preview
Cybersecurity Assessment Questions &
Answers.
What is Cyber Security?
A necessary science for protecting people and their values from security threats over the
internet
Threat
Possible danger
Possible Dangers for Computer systems
Viruses
Worms
Trojan Horses
Spyware
Adware
Backdoors
Logic bombs
others
Possible dangers for organizations (Companies, banks, etc)
Cyber Piracy
Denial of Service
Intrusion
Unauthorized access
Disclosure of information
Modification of data
1
,Possible dangers for countries
Cyber Warfare
Cyber Vandalism
Cyber Espionage
Cyber Terrorism
Possible dangers monetary dangers
Computer Fraud
Phishing
Vishing
Identity theft
Theft of information
Theft of assets
Possible dangers for people
Cyber trolling
Cyber stalking
Cyber harassment
Cyber bullying
Cyber extortion
First electronic computers (year)
1940s
2
, Start of computer industry (year)
1950s
Software comes into its own. Multi user systems emerged, needing mechanisms to protects
systems from users
(year)
1960s
Age of the mainframe. Needing sensitive data protection, access control, encryption
(year)
1970s
Age of the PC. Multi Level Security (MLS), information flow, security research, viruses and
worms
(year)
1980s
Age of the internet. Increased exposure to Hostile environments
(year)
1990s
3