CA Module 14

Module 14: Common Threats
and Attacks
CyberOps Associate v1.0
Module Objectives
Module Title: Common Threats and Attacks
Module Objective: Explain the various types of threats and attacks.
Topic Title Topic Objective

Malware Describe types of malware.
Common Network Attacks - Explain reconnaissance, access, and social engineering network
Reconnaissance, Access, and attacks.
Social Engineering
Network Attacks - Denial of
Explain Denial of Service, buffer overflow, and evasion attacks.
Service, Buffer Overflows, and
Evasion
© 2016 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 2
14.1 Malware
Common Threats and Attacks
Types of Malware
• Malware is a code or software designed to damage, disrupt, steal, or inflict some other ‘bad’
or illegitimate action on data, hosts, or networks.
• The three most common types of malware are Virus, Worm, and Trojan horse.
• Play the animation to view examples of the different malware types.
Viruses
• A virus is a type of malware that spreads by inserting a copy of itself into another program.
• After the program is run, viruses spread from one computer to another, thus infecting the
computers.
• A simple virus may install itself at the first line of code in an executable file.
• Viruses can be harmless, for those that display a picture on the screen, or they can be
destructive. They can also modify or delete files on the hard drive.
• Most viruses spread by USB memory drives, CDs, DVDs, network shares, and email.
• Email viruses are a common type of virus.
Trojan Horses
• Trojan horse malware is a software that appears to be legitimate, but it contains malicious
code which exploits the privileges of the user that runs it.
• Trojans are found attached to online games.
• Users are commonly tricked into loading and executing the Trojan horse on their systems
• The Trojan horse concept is flexible.
• It can cause immediate damage, provide remote access to the system, or access through a
back door.
• Custom-written Trojan horses with a specific target are difficult to detect.
Trojan Horses Classification
• Trojan horses are usually classified according to the damage that they cause, or the manner
in which they breach a system.
Trojan Horses Classification (Contd.)
The types of Trojan horses are as follows:
Type of Trojan Horse Description

Remote-access Enables unauthorized remote access.
Data-sending Provides the threat actor with sensitive data, such as passwords.
Destructive Corrupts or deletes files.
Uses the victim's computer as the source device to launch attacks and
Proxy
perform other illegal activities.
FTP Enables unauthorized file transfer services on end devices.
Security software disabler Stops antivirus programs or firewalls from functioning.
Denial of Service (DoS) Slows or halts network activity.
Actively attempts to steal confidential information, such as credit card
Keylogger
numbers, by recording keystrokes entered into a web form.
Worms
• Computer worms are similar to viruses because they
replicate themselves by independently exploiting
vulnerabilities in networks.
• Worms can slow down networks as they spread
from system to system.
• Worms can run without a host program.
Initial Code Red Worm Infection
• However, once the host is infected, the worm
spreads rapidly over the network.
• In 2001, the Code Red worm had initially infected
658 servers. Within 19 hours, the worm had infected
over 300,000 servers.
Code Red Infection 19 hours later

Worms (Contd.)
• The initial infection of the SQL Slammer worm is
known as the worm that ate the internet.
• SQL Slammer was a Denial of Service (DoS) attack
that exploited a buffer overflow bug in Microsoft’s
SQL Server.
• The number of infected servers doubled in size
every 8.5 seconds. Initial SQL Slammer Infection
• The infected servers did not have the updated patch

that was released 6 months earlier.
• Hence it is essential for organizations to implement
a security policy requiring updates and patches to
be applied in a timely fashion.
SQL Slammer Infection 30 minutes later
Worm Components
Click Play in the figure to view the three components of worm attacks.
Worm Components (Contd.)
The three worm components are as follows:
• Enabling vulnerability - A worm installs itself using an exploit mechanism, such as an
email attachment, an executable file, or a Trojan horse, on a vulnerable system.
• Propagation mechanism - After gaining access to a device, the worm replicates itself
and locates new targets.
• Payload - Any malicious code that results in some action is a payload. Most often this is
used to create a backdoor that allows a threat actor to access the infected host or to
create a DoS attack.
Worm Components (Contd.)
• Worms are self-contained programs that
attack a system to exploit a known
vulnerability.
• Upon successful exploitation, the worm
copies itself from the attacking host to the
newly exploited system and the cycle begins
again.
• This propagation mechanism is commonly
deployed in a way that is difficult to detect.
• Note: Worms never stop spreading on the
internet. After they are released, worms
continue to propagate until all possible
sources of infection are properly patched.
Code Red Worm Propagation
Ransomware
• Ransomware is a malware that denies access to the infected computer system or its data.
• Ransomware frequently uses an encryption algorithm to encrypt system files and data.
• Email and malicious advertising, also known as malvertising, are vectors for ransomware
campaigns.
• Social engineering is also used, when cybercriminals

pretending to be security technicians make random calls at
homes and persuade users to connect to a website that
downloads ransomware to the user’s computer.
Other Malware
The examples of modern malware are as follows:
Type of Malware Description
Includes scam software which uses social engineering to shock or induce anxiety by
creating the perception of a threat. It is generally directed at an unsuspecting user
Scareware
and attempts to persuade the user to infect a computer by taking action to address
the bogus threat.
Attempts to convince people to divulge sensitive information. Examples include receiving
Phishing
an email from their bank asking users to divulge their account and PIN numbers.
Installed on a compromised system. After it is installed, it continues to hide its intrusion
Rootkits
and provide privileged access to the threat actor.
Used to gather information about a user and send the information to another entity
Spyware without the user’s consent. Spyware can be a system monitor, Trojan horse, Adware,
tracking cookies, and key loggers.
Displays annoying pop-ups to generate revenue for its author. The malware may analyze
Adware user interests by tracking the websites visited. It can then send pop-up advertising
pertinent to those sites.
Other Malware
Common Malware Behaviors
• Computers infected with malware often exhibit one or more of the following symptoms:
• Appearance of strange files, programs, or desktop icons
• Antivirus and firewall programs are turning off or reconfiguring settings
• Computer screen is freezing or system is crashing
• Emails are spontaneously being sent without your knowledge to your contact list
• Files have been modified or deleted
• Increased CPU and/or memory usage
• Problems connecting to networks
• Slow computer or web browser speeds
• Unknown processes or services running
• Unknown TCP or UDP ports open
• Connections are made to hosts on the Internet without user action
• Strange computer behavior
• Note: Malware behavior is not limited to the above list.
Lab – Anatomy of Malware
In this lab, you will research and analyze some recent malware.
14.2 Common Network
Attacks - Reconnaissance,
Access, and Social
Engineering
Common Network Attacks - Reconnaissance, Access, and Social Engineering
Types of Network Attacks
• Malware is a means to get a payload delivered .
• When a payload is delivered and installed, it can be used to cause a variety of network-
related attacks from the inside as well as from the outside.
• Network attacks are classified into three categories:
• Reconnaissance Attacks
• Access Attacks
• DoS Attacks
Reconnaissance Attacks
• Reconnaissance is information gathering.
• Threat actors use reconnaissance (or recon) attacks to do unauthorized discovery and
mapping of systems, services, or vulnerabilities.
• Recon attacks precede access attacks or DoS attacks.
Reconnaissance Attacks (Contd.)
The techniques used by malicious threat actors to conduct reconnaissance attacks are as follows:
Technique Description
Perform an information The threat actor is looking for initial information about a target. Various tools can be
query of a target used, including the Google search, organizations website, whois, and more.
Initiate a ping sweep of The information query usually reveals the target’s network address. The threat actor
the target network can now initiate a ping sweep to determine which IP addresses are active.
Initiate a port scan of This is used to determine which ports or services are available. Examples of port
active IP addresses scanners include Nmap, SuperScan, Angry IP Scanner, and NetScanTools.
This is to query the identified ports to determine the type and version of the
Run vulnerability
application and operating system that is running on the host. Examples of tools
scanners
include Nipper, Secuna PSI, Core Impact, Nessus v6, SAINT, and Open VAS.
The threat actor now attempts to discover vulnerable services that can be exploited. A
Run exploitation tools variety of vulnerability exploitation tools exist including Metasploit, Core Impact,
Sqlmap, Social Engineer Toolkit, and Netsparker.
Internet Information Queries: Click Play in Performing Ping Sweep: Click Play in the figure
the figure to view an animation of a threat to view an animation of a threat actor doing a
actor using the who is command to find ping sweep of the target’s network address to
information about a target. discover live and active IP addresses.
Performing Port Scan: Click Play in the figure to view an animation of a threat actor performing
a port scan on the discovered active IP addresses using Nmap.
Video - Reconnaissance Attacks
Watch the video to learn about the different techniques in a reconnaissance attack.
Access Attacks
• Access attacks exploit known vulnerabilities in authentication services, FTP services, and
web services to gain entry into web accounts, confidential databases, and other sensitive
information.
Password Attacks
 The threat actor attempts to discover critical system passwords using
a variety of password cracking tools.
Spoofing Attacks
 The threat actor device attempts to pose as another device by falsifying data.
 Common spoofing attacks include IP spoofing, MAC spoofing, and DHCP spoofing.
 Trust exploitations
 Port redirections
 Man-in-the-middle attacks
 Buffer overflow attacks © 2016 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 26
Access Attacks (Contd.)
Trust Exploitation Example: Click Play in the Port Redirection Example: The example
figure to view an example of trust exploitation. shows a threat actor using SSH (port 22) to
connect to a compromised Host A trusted by
Host B. Hence, the threat actor can use
Telnet (port 23) to access it.
Access Attacks (Contd.)
Man-in-the-Middle Attack Example: The Buffer Overflow Attack: The figure shows that
figure displays an example of a man-in-the- the threat actor is sending many packets to the
middle attack. victim in an attempt to overflow the victim’s
buffer.
Video - Access and Social Engineering Attacks
Watch the video to see the demonstration of the types of access and social engineering attacks.
Social Engineering Attacks
• Social Engineering is an access attack that attempts to manipulate individuals into performing
actions or divulging into confidential information.
• Some social engineering techniques are performed in-person or via the telephone or internet.
• Social engineering techniques are explained in the below table.
Social Engineering
Description
Attack
A threat actor pretends to need personal or financial data to confirm the identity of
Pretexting
the recipient.
A threat actor sends fraudulent email which is disguised as being from a legitimate,
Phishing trusted source to trick the recipient into installing malware on their device, or to share
personal or financial information.
A threat actor creates a targeted phishing attack tailored for a specific individual or
Spear phishing
organization.
Also known as junk mail, this is unsolicited email which often contains harmful links,
Spam
malware, or deceptive content.
Social Engineering Attacks (Contd.)
Social Engineering
Description
Attack
Something for Sometimes called “Quid pro quo”, this is when a threat actor requests personal
Something information from a party in exchange for something such as a gift.
A threat actor leaves a malware infected flash drive in a public location. A victim
Baiting finds the drive and unsuspectingly inserts it into their laptop, unintentionally
installing malware.
In this type of attack, a threat actor pretends to be someone else to gain the trust of
Impersonation
a victim.
This is where a threat actor quickly follows an authorized person into a secure
Tailgating
location to gain access to a secure area.
This is where a threat actor inconspicuously looks over someone’s shoulder to steal
Shoulder surfing
their passwords or other information.
This is where a threat actor rummages through trash bins to discover confidential
Dumpster diving
documents.
Social Engineering Attacks (Contd.)
• The Social Engineer Toolkit (SET) was
designed to help white hat hackers and other
network security professionals to create social
engineering attacks to test their own networks.
• Enterprises must educate their users about
the risks of social engineering, and develop
strategies to validate identities over the phone,
via email, or in person.
Social Engineering Protection Practices

Strengthening the Weakest Link
• Cybersecurity is as strong as its weakest link.
• The weakest link in cybersecurity can be the personnel within an organization, and social
engineering is a major security threat.
• One of the most effective security measures that an organization can take is to train its
personnel and create a ‘security-aware culture’.
Lab – Social Engineering
In this lab, you will research examples of social engineering and identify ways to recognize and
prevent it.
14.3 Network Attacks - Denial
of Service, Buffer Overflows,
and Evasion
Network Attacks - Denial of Service, Buffer Overflows, and Evasion
Video – Denial of Service Attacks
Watch the video to learn about Denial of Service attacks.
DoS and DDoS Attacks (Contd.)
DoS Attack: Click Play in the figure to view DDoS Attack: Click Play in the figure to
the animation of a DoS attack. view the animations of a DDoS attack.
DoS and DDoS Attacks
• A Denial of Service (DoS) attack creates some sort of interruption in network services to
users, devices, or applications. The two types of DoS attacks are as follows:
• Overwhelming Quantity of Traffic - The threat actor sends an enormous quantity of data at
a rate that the network, host, or application cannot handle.
• Maliciously Formatted Packets - The threat actor sends a maliciously formatted packet to a
host or application and the receiver is unable to handle it.
Components of DDoS Attacks
The following terms are used to describe the components of a DDoS:
Component Description
A group of compromised hosts. These hosts
zombies
run malicious code.
Bots are malware that is designed to infect a
bots
host and communicate with a handler system.
A group of zombies that have been infected
botnet using self-propagating malware and are
controlled by handlers.
A master command-and-control
handlers (CnC or C2) server controlling groups of
zombies.
Enables unauthorized file transfer services
botmaster
on end devices.
Video Demonstration – Mirai Botnet
Mirai is malware that targeted IoT devices that are configured with default login information.
Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras made up the majority of Mirai’s targets. Using a
brute force dictionary attack, Mirai ran through a list of default usernames and passwords
that were widely known on the internet.
 root/default
 root/1111
 root/54321
 admin/admin1234
 admin1/password
 guest/12345
 tech/tech
 support/support
• The botnet was used as part of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
Video Demonstration – Mirai Botnet (Contd.)
Play the video to view a demonstration of how a botnet-based DDoS attack makes services
unavailable.
Buffer Overflow Attack
• The threat actor uses the buffer overflow DoS attack to find
a system memory-related flaw on a server and exploit it.
• For instance, a remote denial of service attack vulnerability
was discovered in Microsoft Windows 10, where the threat
actor created malicious code to access out-of-scope
memory.
• Another example is ping of death, where a threat actor
sends a ping of death, which is an echo request in an IP
packet that is larger than the maximum packet size.
• The receiving host cannot handle a packet size and it
would crash.
• Note: It is estimated that one third of malicious attacks are
the result of buffer overflows.
Evasion Methods
The evasion methods used by threat actors include:
Evasion Method Description

This evasion technique uses tunneling to hide, or encryption to scramble, malware
Encryption and files. This makes it difficult for many security detection techniques to detect and
tunneling identify the malware. Tunneling can mean hiding stolen data inside of legitimate
packets.
Resource This evasion technique makes the target host too busy to properly use security
exhaustion detection techniques.
This evasion technique splits a malicious payload into smaller packets to bypass
network security detection. After the fragmented packets bypass the security
Traffic fragmentation
detection system, the malware is reassembled and may begin sending sensitive data
out of the network.
Evasion Methods (Contd.)
This evasion technique occurs when network defenses do not properly handle features
Protocol-level
of a PDU like a checksum or TTL value. This can trick a firewall into ignoring packets
misinterpretation
that it should check.
In this evasion technique, the threat actor attempts to trick an IPS by obfuscating the
data in the payload. This is done by encoding it in a different format. For example, the
Traffic substitution
threat actor could use encoded traffic in Unicode instead of ASCII. The IPS does not
recognize the true meaning of the data, but the target end system can read the data.
Similar to traffic substitution, but the threat actor inserts extra bytes of data in a
Traffic insertion malicious sequence of data. The IPS rules miss the malicious data, accepting the full
sequence of data.
Common Threats and Network Attacks - Denial of Service, Buffer Overflows, and Evasion
This technique assumes the threat actor has compromised an inside host and wants to
expand their access further into the compromised network. An example is a threat actor
Pivoting
who has gained access to the administrator password on a compromised host and is
attempting to login to another host using the same credentials.
A rootkit is a complex attacker tool used by experienced threat actors. It integrates with
the lowest levels of the operating system. When a program attempts to list files,
Rootkits processes, or network connections, the rootkit presents a sanitized version of the output,
eliminating any incriminating output. The goal of the rootkit is to completely hide the
activities of the attacker on the local system.
Network traffic can be redirected through intermediate systems in order to hide the
ultimate destination for stolen data. In this way, known command-and-control not be
blocked by an enterprise because the proxy destination appears benign. Additionally, if
Proxies
data is being stolen, the destination for the stolen data can be distributed among many
proxies, thus not drawing attention to the fact that a single unknown destination is
serving as the destination for large amounts of network traffic.
Common Threats and Network Attacks - Denial of Service, Buffer Overflows, and Evasion
14.4 Common Threats and
Attacks Summary
Common Threats and Attacks Summary
What Did I Learn in this Module?
• Malware is short for malicious software or malicious code.
• Most viruses are spread through USB memory drives, CDs, DVDs, network shares, and
email.
• Trojans are found in online games.
• Three common types of malware are virus, worm, and Trojan horse.
• Threat actors can also attack the network from outside.
• The three major categories are reconnaissance, access, and DoS attacks.
• Recon attacks precede access or DoS attacks.
• Access attacks exploit known vulnerabilities in authentication services, FTP services, and
web services.
• DoS attacks create some sort of interruption of network services to users, devices, or
applications.
Common Threats and Attacks Summary
What Did I Learn in this Module? (Contd.)
• DDoS attacks are similar in intent to DoS attacks, except that the DDoS attack increases in
magnitude because it originates from multiple, coordinated sources.
• Mirai is a malware that targets IoT devices configured with default login information.
• The goal of a threat actor when using a buffer overflow DoS attack is to find a system
memory-related flaw on a server and exploit it.

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Module 14: Common Threats

Module Objective: Explain the various types of threats and attacks.

Topic Title Topic Objective

• Play the animation to view examples of the different malware types.

• Email viruses are a common type of virus.

• The Trojan horse concept is flexible.

Type of Trojan Horse Description

Code Red Infection 19 hours later

• The infected servers did not have the updated patch

• Social engineering is also used, when cybercriminals

Social Engineering Protection Practices

Evasion Method Description

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