Sonicwall block reason gateway geo ip filter alert

2

Contents 1. Cover Page 2. Title Page 3. Copyright Page 4. Contents at a Glance 5. Contents 6. About This E-Book 7. Preface 8. About the Author 9. Dedication

10. Acknowledgments 11. About the Technical Reviewers 12. We Want to Hear from You! 13. Reader Services 14. Chapter 1: Introduction to Network Security

1. Introduction 2. The Basics of a Network

1. Basic Network Structure 2. Data Packets 3. IP Addresses 4. Uniform Resource Locators 5. MAC Addresses 6. Protocols

3. Basic Network Utilities

3

1. ipconfig 2. ping 3. tracert 4. netstat

4. The OSI Model 5. What Does This Mean for Security? 6. Assessing Likely Threats to the Network 7. Classifications of Threats

1. Malware 2. Compromising System Security—Intrusions 3. Denial of Service

8. Likely Attacks 9. Threat Assessment

10. Understanding Security Terminology

1. Hacking Terminology 2. Security Terminology

11. Choosing a Network Security Approach

1. Perimeter Security Approach 2. Layered Security Approach 3. Hybrid Security Approach

12. Network Security and the Law 13. Using Security Resources 14. Summary

15. Chapter 2: Types of Attacks

4

1. Introduction 2. Understanding Denial of Service Attacks

1. DoS in Action 2. SYN Flood 3. Smurf Attack 4. Ping of Death 5. UDP Flood 6. ICMP Flood 7. DHCP Starvation 8. HTTP Post DoS 9. PDoS

10. Distributed Reflection Denial of Service 11. DoS Tools 12. Real-World Examples 13. Defending Against DoS Attacks

3. Defending Against Buffer Overflow Attacks 4. Defending Against IP Spoofing 5. Defending Against Session Hijacking 6. Blocking Virus and Trojan Horse Attacks

1. Viruses 2. Types of Viruses 3. Trojan Horses

7. Summary

16. Chapter 3: Fundamentals of Firewalls

1. Introduction 2. What Is a Firewall?

5

1. Types of Firewalls 2. Packet Filtering Firewall 3. Stateful Packet Inspection 4. Application Gateway 5. Circuit Level Gateway 6. Hybrid Firewalls 7. Blacklisting/Whitelisting

3. Implementing Firewalls

1. Host-Based 2. Dual-Homed Hosts 3. Router-Based Firewall 4. Screened Hosts

4. Selecting and Using a Firewall

1. Using a Firewall

5. Using Proxy Servers

1. The WinGate Proxy Server 2. NAT

6. Summary

17. Chapter 4: Firewall Practical Applications

1. Introduction 2. Using Single Machine Firewalls 3. Windows 10 Firewall 4. User Account Control

6

5. Linux Firewalls

1. Iptables 2. Symantec Norton Firewall 3. McAfee Personal Firewall

6. Using Small Office/Home Office Firewalls

1. SonicWALL 2. D-Link DFL-2560 Office Firewall

7. Using Medium-Sized Network Firewalls

1. Check Point Firewall 2. Cisco Next-Generation Firewalls

8. Using Enterprise Firewalls 9. Summary

18. Chapter 5: Intrusion-Detection Systems

1. Introduction 2. Understanding IDS Concepts

1. Preemptive Blocking 2. Anomaly Detection

3. IDS Components and Processes 4. Understanding and Implementing IDSs

1. Snort 2. Cisco Intrusion-Detection and Prevention

7

5. Understanding and Implementing Honeypots

1. Specter 2. Symantec Decoy Server 3. Intrusion Deflection 4. Intrusion Deterrence

6. Summary

19. Chapter 6: Encryption Fundamentals

1. Introduction 2. The History of Encryption

1. The Caesar Cipher 2. ROT 13 3. Atbash Cipher 4. Multi-Alphabet Substitution 5. Rail Fence 6. Vigenère 7. Enigma 8. Binary Operations

3. Learning About Modern Encryption Methods

1. Symmetric Encryption 2. Key Stretching 3. PRNG 4. Public Key Encryption 5. Digital Signatures

4. Identifying Good Encryption 5. Understanding Digital Signatures and Certificates

8

1. Digital Certificates 2. PGP Certificates 3. MD5 4. SHA 5. RIPEMD 6. HAVAL

6. Understanding and Using Decryption 7. Cracking Passwords

1. John the Ripper 2. Using Rainbow Tables 3. Using Other Password Crackers 4. General Cryptanalysis

8. Steganography 9. Steganalysis

10. Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography 11. Summary

20. Chapter 7: Virtual Private Networks

1. Introduction 2. Basic VPN Technology 3. Using VPN Protocols for VPN Encryption

1. PPTP 2. PPTP Authentication 3. L2TP 4. L2TP Authentication 5. L2TP Compared to PPTP

4. IPSec

9

5. SSL/TLS 6. Implementing VPN Solutions

1. Cisco Solutions 2. Service Solutions 3. Openswan 4. Other Solutions

7. Summary

21. Chapter 8: Operating System Hardening

1. Introduction 2. Configuring Windows Properly

1. Accounts, Users, Groups, and Passwords 2. Setting Security Policies 3. Registry Settings 4. Services 5. Encrypting File System 6. Security Templates

3. Configuring Linux Properly 4. Patching the Operating System 5. Configuring Browsers

1. Securing Browser Settings for Microsoft Internet Explorer

2. Other Browsers

6. Summary

10

22. Chapter 9: Defending Against Virus Attacks

1. Introduction 2. Understanding Virus Attacks

1. What Is a Virus? 2. What Is a Worm? 3. How a Virus Spreads 4. The Virus Hoax 5. Types of Viruses

3. Virus Scanners

1. Virus Scanning Techniques 2. Commercial Antivirus Software

4. Antivirus Policies and Procedures 5. Additional Methods for Defending Your System 6. What to Do If Your System Is Infected by a Virus

1. Stopping the Spread of the Virus 2. Removing the Virus 3. Finding Out How the Infection Started

7. Summary

23. Chapter 10: Defending Against Trojan Horses, Spyware, and Adware

1. Introduction 2. Trojan Horses

1. Identifying Trojan Horses

11

2. Symptoms of a Trojan Horse 3. Why So Many Trojan Horses? 4. Preventing Trojan Horses

3. Spyware and Adware

1. Identifying Spyware and Adware 2. Anti-Spyware 3. Anti-Spyware Policies

4. Summary

24. Chapter 11: Security Policies

1. Introduction 2. Defining User Policies

1. Passwords 2. Internet Use Policy 3. E-mail Attachments 4. Software Installation and Removal 5. Instant Messaging 6. Desktop Configuration 7. Final Thoughts on User Policies

3. Defining System Administration Policies

1. New Employees 2. Leaving Employees 3. Change Requests 4. Security Breaches

12

4. Defining Access Control 5. Defining Developmental Policies 6. Summary

25. Chapter 12: Assessing System Security

1. Introduction 2. Risk Assessment Concepts 3. Evaluating the Security Risk 4. Conducting the Initial Assessment

1. Patches 2. Ports 3. Protect 4. Physical

5. Probing the Network

1. NetCop 2. NetBrute 3. Cerberus 4. Port Scanner for Unix: SATAN 5. SAINT 6. Nessus 7. NetStat Live 8. Active Ports 9. Other Port Scanners

10. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 11. NSAuditor 12. NMAP

6. Vulnerabilities

13

1. CVE 2. NIST 3. OWASP

7. McCumber Cube

1. Goals 2. Information States 3. Safeguards

8. Security Documentation

1. Physical Security Documentation 2. Policy and Personnel Documentation 3. Probe Documents 4. Network Protection Documents

9. Summary

26. Chapter 13: Security Standards

1. Introduction 2. COBIT 3. ISO Standards 4. NIST Standards

1. NIST SP 800-14 2. NIST SP 800-35 3. NIST SP 800-30 Rev. 1

5. U.S. DoD Standards 6. Using the Orange Book

14

1. D - Minimal Protection 2. C - Discretionary Protection 3. B - Mandatory Protection 4. A - Verified Protection

7. Using the Rainbow Series 8. Using the Common Criteria 9. Using Security Models

1. Bell-LaPadula Model 2. Biba Integrity Model 3. Clark-Wilson Model 4. Chinese Wall Model 5. State Machine Model

10. U.S. Federal Regulations, Guidelines, and Standards

1. The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)

2. HITECH 3. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) 4. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA): 18

U.S. Code § 1030 5. Fraud and Related Activity in Connection

with Access Devices: 18 U.S. Code § 1029 6. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 7. PCI DSS

11. Summary

27. Chapter 14: Physical Security and Disaster Recovery

1. Introduction

15

2. Physical Security

1. Equipment Security 2. Securing Building Access 3. Monitoring 4. Fire Protection 5. General Premises Security

3. Disaster Recovery

1. Disaster Recovery Plan 2. Business Continuity Plan 3. Determining Impact on Business 4. Testing Disaster Recovery 5. Disaster Recovery Related Standards

4. Ensuring Fault Tolerance 5. Summary

28. Chapter 15: Techniques Used by Attackers

1. Introduction 2. Preparing to Hack

1. Passively Searching for Information 2. Active Scanning 3. NSAuditor 4. Enumerating 5. Nmap 6. Shodan.io 7. Manual Scanning

3. The Attack Phase

16

1. Physical Access Attacks 2. Remote Access Attacks

4. Wi-Fi Hacking 5. Summary

29. Chapter 16: Introduction to Forensics

1. Introduction 2. General Forensics Guidelines

1. EU Evidence Gathering 2. Scientific Working Group on Digital

Evidence 3. U.S. Secret Service Forensics Guidelines 4. Don’t Touch the Suspect Drive 5. Leave a Document Trail 6. Secure the Evidence

3. FBI Forensics Guidelines 4. Finding Evidence on the PC

1. In the Browser 2. In System Logs 3. Recovering Deleted Files 4. Operating System Utilities 5. The Windows Registry

5. Gathering Evidence from a Cell Phone

1. Logical Acquisition 2. Physical Acquisition 3. Chip-off and JTAG

17

4. Cellular Networks 5. Cell Phone Terms

6. Forensic Tools to Use

1. AccessData Forensic Toolkit 2. EnCase 3. The Sleuth Kit 4. OSForensics

7. Forensic Science 8. To Certify or Not to Certify? 9. Summary

30. Chapter 17: Cyber Terrorism

1. Introduction 2. Defending Against Computer-Based Espionage 3. Defending Against Computer-Based Terrorism

1. Economic Attack 2. Compromising Defense 3. General Attacks 4. China Eagle Union

4. Choosing Defense Strategies

1. Defending Against Information Warfare 2. Propaganda 3. Information Control 4. Actual Cases 5. Packet Sniffers

18

5. Summary

31. Appendix A: Answers 32. Glossary 33. Index

1. i 2. ii 3. iii 4. iv 5. v 6. vi 7. vii 8. viii 9. ix

10. x 11. xi 12. xii 13. xiii 14. xiv 15. xv 16. xvi 17. xvii 18. xviii 19. xix 20. xx 21. xxi 22. 1 23. 2 24. 3 25. 4 26. 5 27. 6

19

28. 7 29. 8 30. 9 31. 10 32. 11 33. 12 34. 13 35. 14 36. 15 37. 16 38. 17 39. 18 40. 19 41. 20 42. 21 43. 22 44. 23 45. 24 46. 25 47. 26 48. 27 49. 28 50. 29 51. 30 52. 31 53. 32 54. 33 55. 34 56. 35 57. 36 58. 37 59. 38 60. 39 61. 40

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62. 41 63. 42 64. 43 65. 44 66. 45 67. 46 68. 47 69. 48 70. 49 71. 50 72. 51 73. 52 74. 53 75. 54 76. 55 77. 56 78. 57 79. 58 80. 59 81. 60 82. 61 83. 62 84. 63 85. 64 86. 65 87. 66 88. 67 89. 68 90. 69 91. 70 92. 71 93. 72 94. 73 95. 74

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96. 75 97. 76 98. 77 99. 78

100. 79 101. 80 102. 81 103. 82 104. 83 105. 84 106. 85 107. 86 108. 87 109. 88 110. 89 111. 90 112. 91 113. 92 114. 93 115. 94 116. 95 117. 96 118. 97 119. 98 120. 99 121. 100 122. 101 123. 102 124. 103 125. 104 126. 105 127. 106 128. 107 129. 108

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130. 109 131. 110 132. 111 133. 112 134. 113 135. 114 136. 115 137. 116 138. 117 139. 118 140. 119 141. 120 142. 121 143. 122 144. 123 145. 124 146. 125 147. 126 148. 127 149. 128 150. 129 151. 130 152. 131 153. 132 154. 133 155. 134 156. 135 157. 136 158. 137 159. 138 160. 139 161. 140 162. 141 163. 142

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164. 143 165. 144 166. 145 167. 146 168. 147 169. 148 170. 149 171. 150 172. 151 173. 152 174. 153 175. 154 176. 155 177. 156 178. 157 179. 158 180. 159 181. 160 182. 161 183. 162 184. 163 185. 164 186. 165 187. 166 188. 167 189. 168 190. 169 191. 170 192. 171 193. 172 194. 173 195. 174 196. 175 197. 176

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198. 177 199. 178 200. 179 201. 180 202. 181 203. 182 204. 183 205. 184 206. 185 207. 186 208. 187 209. 188 210. 189 211. 190 212. 191 213. 192 214. 193 215. 194 216. 195 217. 196 218. 197 219. 198 220. 199 221. 200 222. 201 223. 202 224. 203 225. 204 226. 205 227. 206 228. 207 229. 208 230. 209 231. 210

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232. 211 233. 212 234. 213 235. 214 236. 215 237. 216 238. 217 239. 218 240. 219 241. 220 242. 221 243. 222 244. 223 245. 224 246. 225 247. 226 248. 227 249. 228 250. 229 251. 230 252. 231 253. 232 254. 233 255. 234 256. 235 257. 236 258. 237 259. 238 260. 239 261. 240 262. 241 263. 242 264. 243 265. 244

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266. 245 267. 246 268. 247 269. 248 270. 249 271. 250 272. 251 273. 252 274. 253 275. 254 276. 255 277. 256 278. 257 279. 258 280. 259 281. 260 282. 261 283. 262 284. 263 285. 264 286. 265 287. 266 288. 267 289. 268 290. 269 291. 270 292. 271 293. 272 294. 273 295. 274 296. 275 297. 276 298. 277 299. 278

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300. 279 301. 280 302. 281 303. 282 304. 283 305. 284 306. 285 307. 286 308. 287 309. 288 310. 289 311. 290 312. 291 313. 292 314. 293 315. 294 316. 295 317. 296 318. 297 319. 298 320. 299 321. 300 322. 301 323. 302 324. 303 325. 304 326. 305 327. 306 328. 307 329. 308 330. 309 331. 310 332. 311 333. 312

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334. 313 335. 314 336. 315 337. 316 338. 317 339. 318 340. 319 341. 320 342. 321 343. 322 344. 323 345. 324 346. 325 347. 326 348. 327 349. 328 350. 329 351. 330 352. 331 353. 332 354. 333 355. 334 356. 335 357. 336 358. 337 359. 338 360. 339 361. 340 362. 341 363. 342 364. 343 365. 344 366. 345 367. 346

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368. 347 369. 348 370. 349 371. 350 372. 351 373. 352 374. 353 375. 354 376. 355 377. 356 378. 357 379. 358 380. 359 381. 360 382. 361 383. 362 384. 363 385. 364 386. 365 387. 366 388. 367 389. 368 390. 369 391. 370 392. 371 393. 372 394. 373 395. 374 396. 375 397. 376 398. 377 399. 378 400. 379 401. 380

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402. 381 403. 382 404. 383 405. 384 406. 385 407. 386 408. 387 409. 388 410. 389 411. 390 412. 391 413. 392 414. 393 415. 394 416. 395 417. 396 418. 397 419. 398 420. 399 421. 400 422. 401 423. 402 424. 403 425. 404 426. 405 427. 406 428. 407 429. 408 430. 409 431. 410 432. 411 433. 412 434. 413 435. 414

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436. 415 437. 416 438. 417 439. 418 440. 419 441. 420 442. 421 443. 422 444. 423 445. 424 446. 425 447. 426 448. 427 449. 428 450. 429 451. 430 452. 431 453. 432 454. 433 455. 434 456. 435 457. 436 458. 437 459. 438 460. 439 461. 440 462. 441 463. 442 464. 443 465. 444 466. 445 467. 446 468. 447 469. 448

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470. 449 471. 450 472. 451 473. 452 474. 453 475. 454 476. 455 477. 456 478. 457 479. 458 480. 459 481. 460 482. 461 483. 462 484. 463 485. 464 486. 465 487. 466 488. 467 489. 468 490. 469 491. 470 492. 471 493. 472 494. 473 495. 474 496. 475 497. 476 498. 477 499. 478 500. 479 501. 480 502. 481 503. 482

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504. 483 505. 484 506. 485 507. 486 508. 487 509. 488 510. 489 511. 490 512. 491 513. 492 514. 493 515. 494 516. 495 517. 496 518. 497 519. 498 520. 499 521. 500 522. 501 523. 502 524. 503 525. 504 526. 505 527. 506 528. 507 529. 508 530. 509 531. 510 532. 511 533. 512 534. 513 535. 514 536. 515 537. 516

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538. 517 539. 518 540. 519 541. 520 542. 521 543. 522 544. 523 545. 524

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Network Defense and Countermeasures Principles and Practices

Third Edition

Chuck Easttom

800 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240 USA

38

Network Defense and Countermeasures Copyright © 2018 by Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-5996-2

ISBN-10: 0-7897-5996-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933854

Printed in the United States of America

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43

Contents at a Glance Preface

1 Introduction to Network Security

2 Types of Attacks

3 Fundamentals of Firewalls

4 Firewall Practical Applications

5 Intrusion-Detection Systems

6 Encryption Fundamentals

7 Virtual Private Networks

8 Operating System Hardening

9 Defending Against Virus Attacks

10 Defending against Trojan Horses, Spyware, and Adware

11 Security Policies

12 Assessing System Security

13 Security Standards

14 Physical Security and Disaster Recovery

15 Techniques Used by Attackers

16 Introduction to Forensics

44

17 Cyber Terrorism

Appendix A: Answers

Glossary

Index

45

Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction to Network

Security

Introduction

The Basics of a Network

Basic Network Structure

Data Packets

IP Addresses

Uniform Resource Locators

MAC Addresses

Protocols

Basic Network Utilities

ipconfig

ping

tracert

netstat

The OSI Model

What Does This Mean for Security?

Assessing Likely Threats to the Network

Classifications of Threats

Malware

46

Compromising System Security— Intrusions

Denial of Service

Likely Attacks

Threat Assessment

Understanding Security Terminology

Hacking Terminology

Security Terminology

Choosing a Network Security Approach

Perimeter Security Approach

Layered Security Approach

Hybrid Security Approach

Network Security and the Law

Using Security Resources

Summary

Chapter 2: Types of Attacks

Introduction

Understanding Denial of Service Attacks

DoS in Action

SYN Flood

Smurf Attack

Ping of Death

UDP Flood

47

ICMP Flood

DHCP Starvation

HTTP Post DoS

PDoS

Distributed Reflection Denial of Service

DoS Tools

Real-World Examples

Defending Against DoS Attacks

Defending Against Buffer Overflow Attacks

Defending Against IP Spoofing

Defending Against Session Hijacking

Blocking Virus and Trojan Horse Attacks

Viruses

Types of Viruses

Trojan Horses

Summary

Chapter 3: Fundamentals of Firewalls

Introduction

What Is a Firewall?

Types of Firewalls

Packet Filtering Firewall

Stateful Packet Inspection

Application Gateway

48

Circuit Level Gateway

Hybrid Firewalls

Blacklisting/Whitelisting

Implementing Firewalls

Host-Based

Dual-Homed Hosts

Router-Based Firewall

Screened Hosts

Selecting and Using a Firewall

Using a Firewall

Using Proxy Servers

The WinGate Proxy Server

NAT

Summary

Chapter 4: Firewall Practical Applications

Introduction

Using Single Machine Firewalls

Windows 10 Firewall

User Account Control

Linux Firewalls

Iptables

Symantec Norton Firewall

McAfee Personal Firewall

49

Using Small Office/Home Office Firewalls

SonicWALL

D-Link DFL-2560 Office Firewall

Using Medium-Sized Network Firewalls

Check Point Firewall

Cisco Next-Generation Firewalls

Using Enterprise Firewalls

Summary

Chapter 5: Intrusion-Detection Systems

Introduction

Understanding IDS Concepts

Preemptive Blocking

Anomaly Detection

IDS Components and Processes

Understanding and Implementing IDSs

Snort

Cisco Intrusion-Detection and Prevention

Understanding and Implementing Honeypots

Specter

Symantec Decoy Server

Intrusion Deflection

Intrusion Deterrence

50

Summary

Chapter 6: Encryption Fundamentals

Introduction

The History of Encryption

The Caesar Cipher

ROT 13

Atbash Cipher

Multi-Alphabet Substitution

Rail Fence

Vigenère

Enigma

Binary Operations

Learning About Modern Encryption Methods

Symmetric Encryption

Key Stretching

PRNG

Public Key Encryption

Digital Signatures

Identifying Good Encryption

Understanding Digital Signatures and Certificates

Digital Certificates

PGP Certificates

MD5

51

SHA

RIPEMD

HAVAL

Understanding and Using Decryption

Cracking Passwords

John the Ripper

Using Rainbow Tables

Using Other Password Crackers

General Cryptanalysis

Steganography

Steganalysis

Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography

Summary

Chapter 7: Virtual Private Networks

Introduction

Basic VPN Technology

Using VPN Protocols for VPN Encryption

PPTP

PPTP Authentication

L2TP

L2TP Authentication

L2TP Compared to PPTP

IPSec

52

SSL/TLS

Implementing VPN Solutions

Cisco Solutions

Service Solutions

Openswan

Other Solutions

Summary

Chapter 8: Operating System Hardening

Introduction

Configuring Windows Properly

Accounts, Users, Groups, and Passwords

Setting Security Policies

Registry Settings

Services

Encrypting File System

Security Templates

Configuring Linux Properly

Patching the Operating System

Configuring Browsers

Securing Browser Settings for Microsoft Internet Explorer

Other Browsers

53

Summary

Chapter 9: Defending Against Virus Attacks

Introduction

Understanding Virus Attacks

What Is a Virus?

What Is a Worm?

How a Virus Spreads

The Virus Hoax

Types of Viruses

Virus Scanners

Virus Scanning Techniques

Commercial Antivirus Software

Antivirus Policies and Procedures

Additional Methods for Defending Your System

What to Do If Your System Is Infected by a Virus

Stopping the Spread of the Virus

Removing the Virus

Finding Out How the Infection Started

Summary

Chapter 10: Defending Against Trojan Horses, Spyware, and Adware

Introduction

Trojan Horses

54

Identifying Trojan Horses

Symptoms of a Trojan Horse

Why So Many Trojan Horses?

Preventing Trojan Horses

Spyware and Adware

Identifying Spyware and Adware

Anti-Spyware

Anti-Spyware Policies

Summary

Chapter 11: Security Policies

Introduction

Defining User Policies

Passwords

Internet Use Policy

E-mail Attachments

Software Installation and Removal

Instant Messaging

Desktop Configuration

Final Thoughts on User Policies

Defining System Administration Policies

New Employees

Leaving Employees

Change Requests

55

Security Breaches

Defining Access Control

Defining Developmental Policies

Summary

Chapter 12: Assessing System Security

Introduction

Risk Assessment Concepts

Evaluating the Security Risk

Conducting the Initial Assessment

Patches

Ports

Protect

Physical

Probing the Network

NetCop

NetBrute

Cerberus

Port Scanner for Unix: SATAN

SAINT

Nessus

NetStat Live

Active Ports

Other Port Scanners

56

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer

NSAuditor

NMAP

Vulnerabilities

CVE

NIST

OWASP

McCumber Cube

Goals

Information States

Safeguards

Security Documentation

Physical Security Documentation

Policy and Personnel Documentation

Probe Documents

Network Protection Documents

Summary

Chapter 13: Security Standards

Introduction

COBIT

ISO Standards

NIST Standards

NIST SP 800-14

57

NIST SP 800-35

NIST SP 800-30 Rev. 1

U.S. DoD Standards

Using the Orange Book

D - Minimal Protection

C - Discretionary Protection

B - Mandatory Protection

A - Verified Protection

Using the Rainbow Series

Using the Common Criteria

Using Security Models

Bell-LaPadula Model

Biba Integrity Model

Clark-Wilson Model

Chinese Wall Model

State Machine Model

U.S. Federal Regulations, Guidelines, and Standards

The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)

HITECH

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

58

(CFAA): 18 U.S. Code § 1030

Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Access Devices: 18 U.S. Code § 1029

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

PCI DSS

Summary

Chapter 14: Physical Security and Disaster Recovery

Introduction

Physical Security

Equipment Security

Securing Building Access

Monitoring

Fire Protection

General Premises Security

Disaster Recovery

Disaster Recovery Plan

Business Continuity Plan

Determining Impact on Business

Testing Disaster Recovery

Disaster Recovery Related Standards

59

Ensuring Fault Tolerance

Summary

Chapter 15: Techniques Used by Attackers

Introduction

Preparing to Hack

Passively Searching for Information

Active Scanning

NSAuditor

Enumerating

Nmap

Shodan.io

Manual Scanning

The Attack Phase

Physical Access Attacks

Remote Access Attacks

Wi-Fi Hacking

Summary

Chapter 16: Introduction to Forensics

Introduction

General Forensics Guidelines

EU Evidence Gathering

Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence

60

U.S. Secret Service Forensics Guidelines

Don’t Touch the Suspect Drive

Leave a Document Trail

Secure the Evidence

FBI Forensics Guidelines

Finding Evidence on the PC

In the Browser

In System Logs

Recovering Deleted Files

Operating System Utilities

The Windows Registry

Gathering Evidence from a Cell Phone

Logical Acquisition

Physical Acquisition

Chip-off and JTAG

Cellular Networks

Cell Phone Terms

Forensic Tools to Use

AccessData Forensic Toolkit

EnCase

The Sleuth Kit

OSForensics

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Forensic Science

To Certify or Not to Certify?

Summary

Chapter 17: Cyber Terrorism

Introduction

Defending Against Computer-Based Espionage

Defending Against Computer-Based Terrorism

Economic Attack

Compromising Defense

General Attacks

China Eagle Union

Choosing Defense Strategies

Defending Against Information Warfare

Propaganda

Information Control

Actual Cases

Packet Sniffers

Summary

Appendix A: Answers

Glossary

Index

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Preface The hottest topic in the IT industry today is computer security. The news is replete with stories of hacking, viruses, and identity theft. The cornerstone of security is defending the organizational network. Network Defense and Countermeasures: Principles and Practices offers a comprehensive overview of network defense. It introduces students to network security threats and methods for defending the network. Three entire chapters are devoted to firewalls and intrusion-detection systems. There is also a chapter providing a basic introduction to encryption. Combining information on the threats to networks, the devices and technologies used to ensure security, as well as concepts such as encryption provides students with a solid, broad- based approach to network defense.

This book provides a blend of theoretical foundations and practical applications. Each chapter ends with multiple choice questions and exercises, and most chapters also have projects. Students who successfully complete this textbook,

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including the end of chapter material, should have a solid understanding of network security. Throughout the book the student is directed to additional resources that can augment the material presented in the chapter.

Audience

This book is designed primarily as a textbook for students who have a basic understanding of how networks operate, including basic terminology, protocols, and devices. Students do not need to have an extensive math background or more than introductory computer courses.

Overview of the Book

This book will walk you through the intricacies of defending your network against attacks. It begins with a brief introduction to the field of network security in Chapter 1, “Introduction to Network Security.” Chapter 2, “Types of Attacks,” explains the threats to a network—including denial of service attacks, buffer overflow attacks, and viruses.

Chapter 3, “Fundamentals of Firewalls,” Chapter 4,

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“Firewall Practical Applications,” Chapter 5, “Intrusion-Detection Systems,” and Chapter 7, “Virtual Private Networks,” give details on various security technologies including firewalls, intrusion-detection systems, and VPNs. These items are the core of any network’s security, so a significant portion of this book is devoted to ensuring the reader fully understands both the concepts behind them and the practical applications. In every case, practical direction for selecting appropriate technology for a given network is included.

Chapter 6, “Encryption Fundamentals,” provides a solid introduction to encryption. This topic is critical because ultimately computer systems are simply devices for storing, transmitting, and manipulating data. No matter how secure the network is, if the data it transmits is not secure then there is a significant danger.

Chapter 8, “Operating System Hardening,” teaches operating system hardening. Chapter 9, “Defending Against Virus Attacks,” and Chapter 10, “Defending Against Trojan Horses, Spyware, and Adware,” give the reader specific defense strategies and techniques to guard against the

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most common network dangers. Chapter 11, “Security Policies,” gives readers an introduction to security policies.

Chapter 12, “Assessing System Security,” teaches the reader how to do an assessment of a network’s security. This includes guidelines for examining policies as well as an overview of network assessment tools. Chapter 13, “Security Standards,” gives an overview of common security standards such as the Orange Book and the Common Criteria. This chapter also discusses various security models such as Bell-LaPadula. Chapter 14, “Physical Security and Disaster Recovery,” examines the often-overlooked topic of physical security as well as disaster recovery, which is a key part of network security.

Chapter 15, “Techniques Used by Attackers,” provides the tools necessary to “know your enemy,” by examining basic hacking techniques and tools as well as strategies for mitigating hacker attacks. Chapter 16, “Introduction to Forensics,” helps you understand basic forensics principles in order to properly prepare for investigation if you or your company become the victim of a computer crime. Chapter 17, “Cyber Terrorism,” discusses

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computer-based espionage and terrorism, two topics of growing concern for the computer security community but often overlooked in textbooks.

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About the Author Chuck Easttom is a computer scientist, author, and inventor. He has authored 25 other books on programming, Web development, security, and Linux. He has also authored dozens of research papers on a wide range of computer science and cyber security topics. He is an inventor with 13 computer science patents. Chuck holds more than 40 different industry certifications. He also is a frequent presenter/speaker at computer and cyber security conferences such as Defcon, ISC2 Security Congress, Secure World, IEEE workshops, and more.

You can reach Chuck at his website (www.chuckeasttom.com) or by e-mail at chuck@chuckeasttom.com.

http://www.chuckeasttom.com
mailto:chuck@chuckeasttom.com
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Dedication This book is dedicated to all the people working in the computer security field, diligently working to

make computer networks safer.

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Acknowledgments While only one name goes on the cover of this book, it is hardly the work of just one person. I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few of the people involved. First of all, the editing staff at Pearson worked extremely hard on this book. Without them this project would simply not be possible. I would also like to thank my wife, Teresa, for all her support while working on this book. She is always very supportive in all my endeavors, a one-woman support team!

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About the Technical Reviewers Akhil Behl, CCIE No. 19564, is a passionate IT executive with key focus on cloud and security. He has more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry working in several leadership, advisory, consultancy, and business development profiles with various organizations. His technology and business specialization includes cloud, security, infrastructure, data center, and business communication technologies.

Akhil has authored multiple titles on security and business communication technologies. He has contributed as technical editor for a number of books on network and information security. He has published several research papers in national and international journals, including IEEE Xplore, and presented at various IEEE conferences, as well as other prominent ICT, security, and telecom events.

Akhil also holds CCSK, CHFI, PMP, ITIL, VCP, TOGAF, CEH, ISM, and several other industry certifications. He has bachelor’s in technology

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degree and an MBA.

Steve Kalman is both an attorney and a professional security expert. He holds the following credentials from (ISC)2 for whom he worked as an authorized instructor: CISSP, CCFP- US, CSSLP, ISSMP, ISSAP, HCISPP, SSCP. Steve has been author or technical editor for more than 20 Pearson/Cisco Press books.

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Chapter 1

Introduction to Network Security

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter and completing the exercises, you will be able to do the following:

Identify the most common dangers to networks.

Understand basic networking.

Employ basic security terminology.

Find the best approach to network security for your organization.

Evaluate the legal issues that will affect your work as a network administrator.

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Use resources available for network security.

INTRODUCTION Finding a week without some major security breach in the news is difficult. University web servers hacked, government computers hacked, banks’ data compromised, health information exposed—the list goes on. It also seems as if each year brings more focus to this issue. Finding anyone in any industrialized nation who had not heard of things such as websites being hacked and identities stolen would be difficult.

More venues for training also exist now. Many universities offer Information Assurance degrees from the bachelor’s level up through the doctoral level. A plethora of industry certification training programs are available, including the CISSP, EC Council’s CEH, Mile2 Security, SANS, and CompTIA’s Security+. There are also now a number of universities offering degrees in cyber security, including distance learning degrees.

Despite this attention from the media and the opportunities to acquire security training, far too many computer professionals—including a

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surprising number of network administrators—do not have a clear understanding of the type of threats to which network systems are exposed, or which ones are most likely to actually occur. Mainstream media focuses attention on the most dramatic computer security breaches rather than giving an accurate picture of the most plausible threat scenarios.

This chapter looks at the threats posed to networks, defines basic security terminology, and lays the foundation for concepts covered in the chapters that follow. The steps required to ensure the integrity and security of your network are methodical and, for the most part, already outlined. By the time you complete this book, you will be able to identify the most common attacks, explain how they are perpetrated in order to prevent them, and understand how to secure your data transmissions.

THE BASICS OF A NETWORK Before diving into how to protect your network, exploring what networks are would probably be a good idea. For many readers this section will be a review, but for some it might be new material.

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Whether this is a review for you, or new information, having a thorough understanding of basic networking before attempting to study network security is critical. Also, be aware this is just a brief introduction to basic networking concepts. Many more details are not explored in this section.

A network is simply a way for machines/computers to communicate. At the physical level, it consists of all the machines you want to connect and the devices you use to connect them. Individual machines are connected either with a physical connection (a category 5 cable going into a network interface card, or NIC) or wirelessly. To connect multiple machines together, each machine must connect to a hub or switch, and then those hubs/switches must connect together. In larger networks, each subnetwork is connected to the others by a router. We look at many attacks in this book (including several in Chapter 2, “Types of Attacks”) that focus on the devices that connect machines together on a network (that is, routers, hubs, and switches). If you find this chapter is not enough, this resource might assist you: http://compnetworking.about.com/od/basicnetworkingconcepts/Networking_Basics_Key_Concepts_in_Computer_Networking.htm

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/basicnetworkingconcepts/Networking_Basics_Key_Concepts_in_Computer_Networking.htm
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Basic Network Structure

Some connection point(s) must exist between your network and the outside world. A barrier is set up between that network and the Internet, usually in the form of a firewall. Many attacks discussed in this book work to overcome the firewall and get into the network.

The real essence of networks is communication— allowing one machine to communicate with another. However, every avenue of communication is also an avenue of attack. The first step in understanding how to defend a network is having a detailed understanding of how computers communicate over a network.

The previously mentioned network interface cards, switches, routers, hubs, and firewalls are the fundamental physical pieces of a network. The way they are connected and the format they use for communication is the network architecture.

Data Packets

After you have established a connection with the network (whether it is physical or wireless), you need to send data. The first part is to identify

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where you want to send it. We will start off discussing IP version 4 addresses; we will look at IPv6 a bit later in this chapter. All computers (as well as routers) have an IP address that is a series of four numbers between 0 and 255 and separated by periods, such as 192.0.0.5 (note that this is an IPv4 address). The second part is to format the data for transmission. All data is ultimately in binary form (1s and 0s). This binary data is put into packets, all less than about 65,000 bytes. The first few bytes are the header. That header tells where the packet is going, where it came from, and how many more packets are coming as part of this transmission. There is actually more than one header, but for now, we will just discuss the header as a single entity. Some attacks that we will study (IP spoofing, for example) try to change the header of packets to give false information. Other methods of attack simply try to intercept packets and read the content (thus compromising the data).

A packet can have multiple headers. In fact, most packets will have at least three headers. The IP header has information such as IP addresses for the source and destination, as well as what protocol the packet is. The TCP header has

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information such as port number. The Ethernet header has information such as the MAC address for the source and destination. If a packet is encrypted with Transport Layer Security (TLS), it will also have a TLS header.

IP Addresses

The first major issue to understand is how to get packets to their proper destination. Even a small network has many computers that could potentially be the final destination of any packet sent. The Internet has millions of computers spread out across the globe. How do you ensure that a packet gets to its proper destination? The problem is not unlike addressing a letter and ensuring it gets to the correct destination. Let’s begin by looking at IP version 4 addressing because it is the most common in use today, but this section also briefly discusses IP version 6.

An IP version 4 address is a series of four three- digit numbers separated by periods. (An example is 107.22.98.198.) Each of the three-digit numbers must be between 0 and 255. You can see that an address of 107.22.98.466 would not be a valid one. The reason for this rule is that these addresses are

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actually four binary numbers: The computer simply displays them to you in decimal format. Recall that 1 byte is 8 bits (1s and 0s), and an 8-bit binary number converted to decimal format will be between 0 and 255. The total of 32 bits means that approximately 4.2 billion possible IP version 4 addresses exist.

The IP address of a computer tells you a lot about that computer. The first byte (or the first decimal number) in an address tells you to what class of network that machine belongs. Table 1-1 summarizes the five network classes.

TABLE 1-1 Network Classes

Class IP Range for the First Byte

Use

A 0–126 Extremely large networks. No Class A network IP addresses are left. All have been used.

B 128–191 Large corporate and government networks. All Class B IP addresses have been used.

C 192–223 The most common group of IP

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addresses. Your ISP probably has a Class C address.

D 224–247 These are reserved for multicasting (transmitting different data on the same channel).

E 248–255 Reserved for experimental use.

These five classes of networks will become more important later in this book (or should you decide to study networking on a deeper level). Observe Table 1-1 carefully, and you probably will discover that the IP range of 127 was not listed. This omission is because that range is reserved for testing. The IP address of 127.0.0.1 designates the machine you are on, regardless of that machine’s assigned IP address. This address is often referred to as the loopback address. That address will be used often in testing your machine and your NIC. We will examine its use a bit later in this chapter in the section on network utilities.

These particular classes are important as they tell you what part of the address represents the network and what part represents the node. For example, in a Class A address, the first octet represents the network, and the remaining three

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represent the node. In a Class B address, the first two octets represent the network, and the second two represent the node. And finally, in a Class C address, the first three octets represent the network, and the last represents the node.

There are also some very specific IP addresses and IP address ranges you should be aware of. The first, as previously mentioned, is 127.0.0.1, or the loopback address. It is another way of referring to the network interface card of the machine you are on.

Private IP addresses are another issue to be aware of. Certain ranges of IP addresses have been designated for use within networks. These cannot be used as public IP addresses but can be used for internal workstations and servers. Those IP addresses are

10.0.0.10 to 10.255.255.255

172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255

192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255

Sometimes people new to networking have some trouble understanding public and private IP addresses. A good analogy is an office building.

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Within a single office building, each office number must be unique. You can only have one 305. And within that building, if you discuss office 305 it is immediately clear what you are talking about. But there are other office buildings, many of which have their own office 305. You can think of private IP addresses as office numbers. They must be unique within their network, but there may be other networks with the same private IP.

Public IP addresses are more like traditional mailing addresses. Those must be unique worldwide. When communicating from office to office you can use the office number, but to get a letter to another building you have to use the complete mailing address. It is much the same with networking. You can communicate within your network using private IP addresses, but to communicate with any computer outside your network, you have to use public IP addresses.

One of the roles of a gateway router is to perform what is called network address translation (NAT). Using NAT, a router takes the private IP address on outgoing packets and replaces it with the public IP address of the gateway router so that the packet can be routed through the Internet.

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We have already discussed IP version 4 network addresses; now let’s turn our attention to subnetting. If you are already familiar with this topic, feel free to skip this section. For some reason this topic tends to give networking students a great deal of trouble. So we will begin with a conceptual understanding. Subnetting is simply chopping up a network into smaller portions. For example, if you have a network using the IP address 192.168.1.X (X being whatever the address is for the specific computer), then you have allocated 255 possible IP addresses. What if you want to divide that into two separate subnetworks? Subnetting is how you do that.

More technically, the subnet mask is a 32-bit number that is assigned to each host to divide the 32-bit binary IP address into network and node portions. You also cannot just put in any number you want. The first value of a subnet mask must be 255; the remaining three values can be 255, 254, 252, 248, 240, 224, or 128. Your computer will take your network IP address and the subnet mask and use a binary AND operation to combine them.

It may surprise you to know that you already have a subnet mask even if you have not been

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subnetting. If you have a Class C IP address, then your network subnet mask is 255.255.255.0. If you have a Class B IP address, then your subnet mask is 255.255.0.0. And finally, if it is Class A, your subnet mask is 255.0.0.0.

Now think about these numbers in relationship to binary numbers. The decimal value 255 converts to 11111111 in binary. So you are literally “masking” the portion of the network address that is used to define the network, and the remaining portion is used to define individual nodes. Now if you want fewer than 255 nodes in your subnet, then you need something like 255.255.255.240 for your subnet. If you convert 240 to binary, it is 11110000. That means the first three octets and the first 4 bits of the last octet define the network. The last 4 bits of the last octet define the node. That means you could have as many as 1111 (in binary) or 15 (in decimal) nodes on this subnetwork. This is the basic essence of subnetting.

Subnetting only allows you to use certain, limited subnets. Another approach is CIDR, or classless interdomain routing. Rather than define a subnet mask, you have the IP address followed by a slash and a number. That number can be any number

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between 0 and 32, which results in IP addresses like these:

192.168.1.10/24 (basically a Class C IP address)

192.168.1.10/31 (much like a Class C IP address with a subnet mask)

When you use this, rather than having classes with subnets, you have variable-length subnet masking (VLSM) that provides classless IP addresses. This is the most common way to define network IP addresses today.

You should not be concerned that new IP addresses are likely to run out soon. The IP version 6 standard is already available, and methods are in place already to extend the use of IPv4 addresses. The IP addresses come in two groups: public and private. The public IP addresses are for computers connected to the Internet. No two public IP addresses can be the same. However, a private IP address, such as one on a private company network, has to be unique only in that network. It does not matter if other computers in the world have the same IP address, because this computer is never connected to those other worldwide computers. Network administrators often use

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private IP addresses that begin with a 10, such as 10.102.230.17. The other private IP addresses are 172.16.0.0–172.31.255.255 and 192.168.0.0– 192.168.255.255.

Also note that an ISP often will buy a pool of public IP addresses and assign them to you when you log on. So, an ISP might own 1,000 public IP addresses and have 10,000 customers. Because all 10,000 customers will not be online at the same time, the ISP simply assigns an IP address to a customer when he or she logs on, and the ISP un- assigns the IP address when the customer logs off.

IPv6 utilizes a 128-bit address (instead of 32) and utilizes a hex numbering method in order to avoid long addresses such as 132.64.34.26.64.156.143.57.1.3.7.44.122.111.201.5. The hex address format appears in the form of 3FFE:B00:800:2::C, for example. This gives you 2 possible addresses (many trillions of addresses), so no chance exists of running out of IP addresses in the foreseeable future.

There is no subnetting in IPv6. Instead, it only uses CIDR. The network portion is indicated by a slash followed by the number of bits in the address

128

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that are assigned to the network portion, such as

/48

/64

There is a loopback address for IPv6, and it can be written as ::/128. Other differences between IPv4 and IPv6 are described here:

Link/machine-local.

IPv6 version of IPv4’s APIPA or Automatic Private IP Addressing. So if the machine is configured for dynamically assigned addresses and cannot communicate with a DHCP server, it assigns itself a generic IP address. DHCP, or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, is used to dynamically assign IP addresses within a network.

IPv6 link/machine-local IP addresses all start with fe80::. So if your computer has this address, that means it could not get to a DHCP server and therefore made up its own generic IP address.

Site/network-local.

IPv6 version of IPv4 private address. In

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other words, these are real IP addresses, but they only work on this local network. They are not routable on the Internet.

All site/network-local IP addresses begin with FE and have C to F for the third hexadecimal digit: FEC, FED, FEE, or FEF.

DHCPv6 uses the Managed Address Configuration Flag (M flag).

When set to 1, the device should use DHCPv6 to obtain a stateful IPv6 address.

Other stateful configuration flag (O flag).

When set to 1, the device should use DHCPv6 to obtain other TCP/IP configuration settings. In other words, it should use the DHCP server to set things like the IP address of the gateway and DNS servers.

Uniform Resource Locators

For most people, the main purpose for getting on the Internet is web pages (but there are other things such as e-mail and file downloading). If you had to remember IP addresses and type

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those in, then surfing the Net would be cumbersome at best. Fortunately, you don’t have to. You type in domain names that make sense to humans and those get translated into IP addresses. For example, you might type in www.chuckeasttom.com to go to my website. Your computer, or your ISP, must translate the name you typed in (called a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL) into an IP address. The DNS (Domain Name Service) protocol, which is introduced along with other protocols a bit later in Table 1-2, handles this translation process. So you are typing in a name that makes sense to humans, but your computer is using a corresponding IP address to connect. If that address is found, your browser sends a packet (using the HTTP protocol) to TCP port 80. If that target computer has software that listens and responds to such requests (like web-server software such as Apache or Microsoft Internet Information Services), then the target computer will respond to your browser’s request and communication will be established. This method is how web pages are viewed. If you have ever received an Error 404: File Not Found, what you’re seeing is that your browser received back

http://www.chuckeasttom.com
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a packet (from the web server) with error code 404, denoting that the web page you requested could not be found. The web server can send back a series of error messages to your web browser, indicating different situations.

E-mail works the same way as visiting websites. Your e-mail client will seek out the address of your e-mail server. Then your e-mail client will use either POP3 to retrieve your incoming e-mail, or SMTP to send your outgoing e-mail. Your e-mail server (probably at your ISP or your company) will then try to resolve the address you are sending to. If you send something to chuckeasttom@yahoo.com, your e-mail server will translate that e-mail address into an IP address for the e-mail server at yahoo.com, and then your server will send your e-mail there. Note that newer e-mail protocols are out there; however, POP3 is still the most commonly used.

IMAP is now widely used as well. Internet Message Access Protocol operates on port 143. The main advantage of IMAP over POP3 is it allows the client to download only the headers to the machine, and then the user can choose which messages to fully download. This is particularly

mailto:chuckeasttom@yahoo.com
http://yahoo.com
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useful for smart phones.

MAC Addresses

MAC addresses are an interesting topic. (You might notice that MAC is also a sublayer of the data link layer of the OSI model.) A MAC address is a unique address for an NIC. Every NIC in the world has a unique address that is represented by a six-byte hexadecimal number. The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is used to convert IP addresses to MAC addresses. So, when you type in a web address, the DNS protocol is used to translate that into an IP address. The ARP protocol then translates that IP address into a specific MAC address of an individual NIC.

Protocols

Different types of communications exist for different purposes. The different types of network communications are called protocols. A protocol is, essentially, an agreed-upon method of communications. In fact, this definition is exactly how the word protocol is used in standard, non-computer usage. Each protocol has a specific purpose and normally operates on

95

a certain port (more on ports in a bit). Table 1-2 lists some of the most important protocols.

TABLE 1-2 Logical Ports and Protocols

Protocol Purpose Port

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

For transferring files between computers.

20 & 21

SSH Secure Shell. A secure/encrypted way to transfer files.

22

Telnet Used to remotely log on to a system. You can then use a command prompt or shell to execute commands on that system. Popular with network administrators.

23

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

Sends e-mail. 25

WhoIS A command that queries a target IP address for information.

43

DNS (Domain Name

Translates URLs into web addresses.

53

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Service)

tFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol)

A quicker, but less reliable form of FTP.

69

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

Displays web pages. 80

POP3 (Post Office Protocol Version 3)

Retrieves e-mail. 110

NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol)

Used for network news groups (Usenet newsgroups). You can access these groups over the web via www.google.com.

119

NetBIOS An older Microsoft protocol for naming systems on a local network.

137, 138, 139

IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

Chat rooms. 194

http://www.google.com
97

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

HTTP encrypted with SSL or TLS. 443

SMB (Server Message Block)

Used by Microsoft Active Directory.

445

ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol)

These are simply packets that contain error messages, informational messages, and control messages.

No specific port

You should note that this list is not complete. Hundreds of other protocols exist, but for now discussing these will suffice. All of these protocols are part of a suite of protocols referred to as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). The most important thing for you to realize is that the communication on networks takes place via packets, and those packets are transmitted according to certain protocols, depending on the type of communication that is occurring. You might be wondering what a port is. Don’t confuse this type of port with the

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connections on the back of your computer, such as a serial port or parallel port. A port in networking terms is a handle, a connection point. It is a numeric designation for a particular pathway of communications. All network communication, regardless of the port used, comes into your computer via the connection on your NIC. You might think of a port as a channel on your TV. You probably have one cable coming into your TV but you can view many channels. You have one cable coming into your computer, but you can communicate on many different ports.

So the picture we’ve drawn so far of networks is one of machines connected to each other via cables, and perhaps to hubs/switches/routers. Networks transmit binary information in packets using certain protocols and ports. This is an accurate picture of network communications, albeit a simple one.

BASIC NETWORK UTILITIES Now that you know what IP addresses and URLs are, you need to be familiar with some basic network utilities. You can execute some network utilities from a command prompt (Windows) or

99

from a shell (Unix/Linux). Many readers are already familiar with Windows, so the text’s discussion will focus on how to execute the commands and discuss them from the Windows command-prompt perspective. However, it must be stressed that these utilities are available in all operating systems. This section covers the essential or common utilities.

ipconfig

The first thing you want to do is get information about your own system. To accomplish this fact- finding mission, you must get a command prompt. In Windows, you do this by going to the Start menu, selecting All Programs, and then choosing Accessories. You can also go to Start, Run, and type cmd to get a command prompt. In Windows 10 you go to Search and type cmd. Now you can type in ipconfig. (You could input the same command in Unix or Linux by typing in ifconfig from the shell.) After typing in ipconfig (ifconfig in Linux), you should see something much like Figure 1-1.

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FIGURE 1-1 ipconfig

This command gives you some information about your connection to a network (or to the Internet). Most importantly you find out your own IP address. The command also has the IP address for your default gateway, which is your connection to the outside world. Running the ipconfig command is a first step in determining your system’s network configuration. Most commands this text mentions, including ipconfig, have a number of parameters, or flags, that can be passed

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to the commands to make the computer behave in a certain way. You can find out what these commands are by typing in the command, followed by a space, and then typing in hyphen question mark: -?.

As you can see, you might use a number of options to find out different details about your computer’s configuration. The most commonly used method would probably be ipconfig/all, shown in Figure 1-2.

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FIGURE 1-2 ipconfig/all

You can see that this option gives you much more information. For example, ipconfig/all gives the name of your computer, when your computer obtained its IP address, and more.

ping

Another commonly used command is ping.

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ping is used to send a test packet, or echo packet, to a machine to find out whether the machine is reachable and how long the packet takes to reach the machine. This useful diagnostic tool can be employed in elementary hacking techniques. Figure 1-3 shows the command.

FIGURE 1-3 ping

This figure tells you that a 32-byte echo packet was sent to the destination and returned. The ttl means “time to live.” That time unit is how many intermediary steps, or hops, the packet should take to the destination before giving up. Remember that the Internet is a vast conglomerate of interconnected networks. Your packet probably won’t go straight to its destination. It will have to take several hops to get there. As with ipconfig,

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you can type in ping -? to find out various ways you can refine your ping.

tracert

The next command we will examine in this chapter is tracert. This command is a sort of “ping deluxe.” tracert not only tells you whether the packet got there and how long it took, but it also tells you all the intermediate hops it took to get there. (This same command can be executed in Linux or Unix, but there it is called traceroute rather than tracert.) You can see this utility in Figure 1-4.

FIGURE 1-4 tracert

With tracert, you can see (in milliseconds) the time the IP addresses of each intermediate step

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listed, and how long it took to get to that step. Knowing the steps required to reach a destination can be very important. If you use Linux, it is traceroute rather than tracert.

netstat

netstat is another interesting command. It is an abbreviation for Network Status. Essentially, this command tells you what connections your computer currently has. Don’t panic if you see several connections; that does not mean a hacker is in your computer. You will see many private IP addresses. This means your network has internal communication going on. You can see this in Figure 1-5.

Certainly, other utilities can be of use to you when working with network communications. However, the four we just examined are the core utilities. These four (ipconfig, ping, tracert, and netstat) are absolutely essential to any network administrator, and you can commit them to memory.

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FIGURE 1-5 netstat

THE OSI MODEL The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model describes how networks communicate (see Table 1-3). It describes the various protocols and activities and tells how the protocols and activities relate to each other. This model is divided into seven layers. It was originally developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in the 1980s.

TABLE 1-3 The OSI Model

Layer Description Protocols

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Application This layer interfaces directly to applications and performs common application services for the application processes.

POP, SMTP, DNS, FTP, Telnet

Presentation The presentation layer relieves the application layer of concern regarding syntactical differences in data representation within the end-user systems.

Telnet, Network Data Representation (NDR), Lightweight Presentation Protocol (LPP)

Session The session layer provides the mechanism for managing the dialogue between end- user application processes.

NetBIOS

Transport This layer provides end- to-end communication control.

TCP, UDP

Network This layer routes the information in the network.

IP, ARP, ICMP

Data link This layer describes the logical organization of data bits transmitted on

SLIP, PPP

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a particular medium. The data link layer is divided into two sublayers: the Media Access Control layer (MAC) and the Logical Link Control layer (LLC).

Physical This layer describes the physical properties of the various communications media, as well as the electrical properties and interpretation of the exchanged signals. In other words, the physical layer is the actual NIC, Ethernet cable, and so forth.

IEEE 1394, DSL, ISDN

Many networking students memorize this model. At least memorizing the names of the seven layers and understanding basically what they each do is good. From a security perspective, the more you understand about network communications, the more sophisticated your defense can be. The most important thing for you to understand is that this model describes a hierarchy of communication. One layer communicates only with the layer

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directly above it or below it.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SECURITY? This book covers security from numerous angles, but ultimately only three venues exist for attack, and thus three venues for security (note this is not about attack vectors, of which there are many):

The data itself: After data leaves your network, the packets are vulnerable for interception and even alteration. Later in this book, during the discussion of encryption and virtual private networks, you will learn how to secure this data. Data can also be attacked at rest, when stored on a computer.

The network connection points: Whether it is the routers or the firewall, any place where one computer connects to another is a place that can be attacked, and one that must be defended. When looking at a system’s security, you should first look at the connectivity points.

The people: People always pose a security

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risk. Either through ignorance, malicious intent, or simple error, people on a system can compromise the system’s security.

As you proceed through this book, don’t lose sight of the basic purpose, which is to secure networks and the data they store and transmit.

ASSESSING LIKELY THREATS TO THE NETWORK Before you can explore the topic of computer security, you must first formulate a realistic assessment of the threats to those systems. The key word is realistic. Clearly one can imagine some very elaborate and highly technical potential dangers. However, as a network security professional, you must focus your attention—and resources—on the likely dangers. Before delving into specific threats, let’s get an idea of how likely attacks, of any type, are on your system.

In this regard, there seem to be two extreme attitudes toward computer security. The first viewpoint holds that little real danger or threat exists to computer systems and that much of the

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negative news is simply a reflection of unwarranted panic. People of this attitude often think that taking only minimal security precautions should ensure the safety of their systems. Unfortunately, some people in decision- making positions hold this point of view. The prevailing sentiment of these individuals is, “If our computer/organization has not been attacked so far, we must be secure.”

This viewpoint often leads to a reactive approach to computer security, meaning that people will wait until after an incident to decide to address security issues. Waiting to address security until an attack occurs might be too late. In the best of circumstances, the incident might have only a minor impact on the organization and serve as a much-needed wake-up call. In less fortunate cases, an organization might face serious, possibly catastrophic consequences. For example, some organizations did not have an effective network security system in place when the WannaCry virus attacked their systems. In fact, WannaCry would have been completely avoided, if systems had been patched. Avoiding this laissez faire approach to security is imperative.

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Any organization that embraces this extreme—and erroneous—philosophy is likely to invest little time or resources in computer security. They might have a basic firewall and antivirus software, but most likely expend little effort ensuring that they are properly configured or routinely updated.

The second viewpoint is that every teenager with a laptop is a highly skilled hacker who can traverse your systems at will and bring your network to its knees. Think of hacking skill like military experience. Finding someone who was in the military is not too hard, but encountering a person who was in Delta Force or Seal Team 6 is rare. Although military experience is fairly common, high levels of special operations skills are not. The same is true with hacking skills. Finding individuals who know a few hacking tricks is easy. Finding truly skilled hackers is far less common.

In Practice

In the Real World

Whenever I am asked to perform some consulting or training task, I get to see a

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number of diverse network environments. From this experience, I have developed the opinion that a disturbingly large segment of the business world takes a very lax approach to computer security. Following are a few examples of behavior that indicate (to me) a lax view toward security:

Companies that do not have any type of intrusion-detection system (IDS, covered in Chapter 5, “Intrusion-Detection Systems”)

Companies that have inadequate antivirus/anti-spyware (covered in Chapter 10, “Defending Against Trojan Horses, Spyware, and Adware”)

Companies that have unsecured backup media (see the discussion in Chapter 11, “Security Policies”)

Companies with no plan for implementing patches (discussed in Chapter 8, “Operating System Hardening”)

These are just a few examples of organizations that are not addressing network security in an appropriate manner.

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At the other end of the spectrum, some executives overestimate security threats. They assume that very talented hackers exist in great numbers and that all of them are an imminent threat to their system. They might believe that virtually any teenager with a laptop can traverse highly secure systems at will. This viewpoint has, unfortunately, been fostered by a number of movies that depict computer hacking in a somewhat glamorous light. Such a worldview makes excellent movie plots, but is simply unrealistic. The reality is that many people who call themselves hackers are less knowledgeable than they think. Systems protected by even moderate security precautions have a low probability of being compromised by a hacker of this skill level.

This does not mean that skillful hackers do not exist. They most certainly do. However, people with the skill to compromise relatively secure systems must use rather time-consuming and tedious techniques to breach system security. These hackers must also weigh the costs and benefits of any hacking mission. Skilled hackers tend to target systems that have a high benefit, either financially or ideologically. If a system is not

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perceived as having sufficient benefit, a skilled hacker is less likely to expend the resources to compromise it. Burglars are one good analogy: Certainly, highly skilled burglars exist; however, they typically seek high-value targets. The thief who targets small businesses and homes usually has limited skills. The same is true of hackers.

FYI: Skilled Versus Unskilled Hackers

Skilled hackers usually target only highly attractive sites. Attractive sites offer valuable information or publicity. Military computers— even simple web servers with no classified information—offer a great deal of publicity. Banks, on the other hand, generally have very valuable information. Novice hackers usually start with a low value and, consequently, often less secure system. Low value systems might not have any data of substantial value or offer much publicity. A college web server would be a good example. Although novice hackers’ skills are not as well developed, their numbers are greater. Also, monetary gains are not the only factor that might make a system attractive to a skilled hacker. If a hacker

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objects to an organization’s ideological stance (for example, if an organization sells large sport utility vehicles that the hacker feels is poor environmental policy), then she might target its system.

Both extreme attitudes regarding the dangers to computer systems are inaccurate. It is certainly true that people exist who have both the comprehension of computer systems and the skills to compromise the security of many, if not most, systems. However, it is also true that many who call themselves hackers are not as skilled as they claim. They have ascertained a few buzzwords from the Internet and are convinced of their own digital supremacy, but they are not able to effect any real compromises to even a moderately secure system.

You might think that erring on the side of caution, or extreme diligence, would be the appropriate approach. In reality, you do not need to take either extreme view. You should take a realistic view of security and formulate practical strategies for defense. Every organization and IT department has finite resources: You only have so much time and money. If you squander part of those resources

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guarding against unrealistic threats, then you might not have adequate resources left for more practical projects. Therefore, a realistic approach to network security is the only practical approach.

You might be wondering why some people overestimate dangers to their networks. The answer, in part at least, lies with the nature of the hacking community and with the media. Media outlets have a tendency to sensationalize. You don’t get good ratings by downplaying danger; you get them by emphasizing, and perhaps outright exaggerating. Also, the Internet is replete with people claiming significant skill as hackers. As with any field of human endeavor, the majority is merely average. The truly talented hacker is no more common than the truly talented concert pianist. Consider how many people take piano lessons at some point in their lives, and then consider how many of those ever truly become virtuosos.

The same is true of computer hackers. Keep in mind that even those who do possess the requisite skill also need the motivation to expend the time and effort necessary to compromise your system. Keep this fact in mind when considering any

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claims of cyber prowess you might encounter.

The claim that many people who describe themselves as hackers lack real skill is not based on any study or survey. A reliable study on this topic would be impossible because hackers are unlikely to identify themselves and submit to skills tests. I came to this conclusion based on two considerations:

The first is simply years of experience traversing hacker discussion groups, chat rooms, and bulletin boards. In more than two decades of work in this field, I have encountered talented and highly skilled hackers, yet I encounter far more who claim to be hackers but clearly demonstrate a lack of sufficient skill. I have also been a frequent speaker at hacking conferences, including DEF CON, and have published in hacking magazines such as 2600. I have had the opportunity to interact extensively with the hacking community.

The second is that it is a fact of human nature that the vast majority of people in any field are, by definition, mediocre. Consider the millions of people who work out at a gym on a

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regular basis, and consider how few ever become competitive body builders. In any field, most participants will be mediocre. That is not meant as a derogatory statement, it is just a fact of life.

This statement is also not meant to minimize the dangers of hacking. That is not my intent at all. Even an unskilled novice attempting to intrude on a system will get in, in the absence of appropriate security precautions. Even if the would-be hacker does not successfully breach security, he can still be quite a nuisance. Additionally, some forms of attack don’t require much skill at all. We discuss these later in this book.

A more balanced view (and therefore, a better way to assess the threat level to any system) is to weigh the attractiveness of a system to potential intruders against the security measures in place. As you shall see, the greatest threat to any system is not actually hackers. Viruses and other attacks are far more prevalent. Threat assessment is a complex task with multiple facets.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF THREATS

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Your network certainly faces real security threats, and these threats can manifest themselves in a variety forms. There are a variety of ways one might choose to classify the various threats to your system. You could choose to classify them by the damage caused, the level of skill required to execute the attack, or perhaps even by the motivation behind the attack. For our purposes we categorize attacks by what they actually do. Based on that philosophy most attacks can be categorized as one of three broad classes:

Intrusion

Blocking

Malware

Figure 1-6 shows the three categories. The intrusion category includes attacks meant to breach security and gain unauthorized access to a system. This group of attacks includes any attempt to gain unauthorized access to a system. This is generally what hackers do. The second category of attack, blocking, includes attacks designed to prevent legitimate access to a system. Blocking attacks are often called denial of service attacks (or

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simply DoS). In these types of attacks the purpose is not to actually get into your system but simply to block legitimate users from gaining access.

FIGURE 1-6 Types of attacks

FYI: What About Other Attacks?

Chapter 2 covers attacks such as buffer overflows that can be used for more than one category. For example, a buffer overflow can be used to shut down a machine, thus making it a blocking attack, or it can be used to breach system security, making it an intrusion attack. However, once it’s implemented, it will be in one category or the other.

The third category of threats is the installation of

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malware on a system. Malware is a generic term for software that has a malicious purpose. It includes virus attacks, Trojan horses, and spyware. Because this category of attack is perhaps the most prevalent danger to systems, we examine it first.

Malware

Malware is probably the most common threat to any system, including home users’ systems, small networks, and large enterprise wide-area networks. One reason is that malware is often designed to spread on its own, without the creator of the malware having to be directly involved. This makes this sort of attack much easier to spread across the Internet, and hence more widespread.

The most obvious example of malware is the computer virus. You probably have a general idea of what a virus is. If you consult different textbooks you will probably see the definition of a virus worded slightly differently. One definition for a virus is “a program that can ‘infect’ other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself.” That is a very good definition, and one you will see throughout this book. A computer

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virus is analogous to a biological virus in that both replicate and spread. The most common method for spreading a virus is using the victim’s e-mail account to spread the virus to everyone in his address book. Some viruses do not actually harm the system itself, but all of them cause network slowdowns or shutdowns due to the heavy network traffic caused by the virus replication.

In Practice

Real Viruses

The original MyDoom worm is discussed in detail in Chapters 2 and 9. MyDoom.BB virus is a variation on MyDoom that began to spread early in 2005. This particular worm appears on your hard drive as either java.exe or services.exe. This is an important thing to learn about viruses. Many try to appear as legitimate system files, thus preventing you from deleting them. There have been many viruses since that time, including well-known viruses such as Stuxnet, Flame, WannaCry, and many others.

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This particular worm sends itself out to everyone in your address book, thus spreading quite rapidly. This worm attempts to download a backdoor program giving the attacker access to your system.

From a technological point of view, this worm was most interesting for how it extracts e-mail addresses. It should be noted that the worm uses a much improved algorithm for e-mail address recognition. Now it can catch such e- mail addresses as

chuck@nospam.domain.com

chuck-at-domain-dot-com

These addresses are translated by the worm to the usable format. Many other e-mail extraction engines are foiled by these sorts of e-mail address permutations (which is why they are used).

Another type of malware, often closely related to the virus, is the Trojan horse. The term is borrowed from the ancient tale. In this tale, the city of Troy was besieged for a long period of time, but the attackers could not gain entrance. They constructed a huge wooden horse and left it one

mailto:chuck@nospam.domain.com
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night in front of the gates to Troy one night. The next morning, the residents of Troy saw the horse and assumed it to be a gift, consequently rolling the wooden horse into the city. Unbeknownst to them, several soldiers were hidden inside the horse. That evening, the soldiers left the horse, opened the city gates, and let their fellow attackers into the city. An electronic Trojan horse works in the same manner, appearing to be benign software but secretly downloading a virus or some other type of malware onto your computer from within. In short, you have an enticing gift that you install on your computer, and later find it has unleashed something quite different from what you expected. It is a fact that Trojan horses are more likely to be found in illicit software. There are many places on the Internet to get pirated copies of commercial software. Finding that such software is actually part of a Trojan horse is not at all uncommon.

Trojan horses and viruses are the two most widely encountered forms of malware. A third category of malware is spyware, which is increasing in frequency at a dramatic pace. Spyware is software that literally spies on what you do on your computer. This can be as simple as a cookie—a text file that your browser creates and stores on your

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hard drive. Cookies are downloaded onto your machine by websites you visit. This text file is then used to recognize you when you return to the same site. That file can enable you to access pages more quickly and save you from having to enter your information multiple times on pages you visit frequently. However, in order to do this, that file must be read by the website; this means it can also be read by other websites. Any data that the file saves can be retrieved by any website, so your entire Internet browsing history can be tracked.

Another form of spyware, called a key logger, records all of your keystrokes. Some also take periodic screen shots of your computer. Data is then either stored for retrieval later by the party who installed the key logger or is sent immediately back via e-mail. In either case, every single thing you do on your computer is recorded for the interested party.

FYI: Key Loggers

Although we defined a key logger as software, note that hardware-based key loggers do indeed exist. Hardware-based key loggers are much less common than software-based key

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loggers. The reason for this is that software key loggers are easier to place on a targeted machine. Hardware key loggers require you to physically go to the machine and install hardware. If the key logger is being installed without the computer user’s knowledge, then installing a physical device can be quite difficult. A software key logger can be installed via a Trojan horse with the perpetrator not even being in the same city as the target computer.

Compromising System Security—Intrusions

One could make the argument that any sort of attack is aimed at compromising security. However, intrusions are those attacks that are actually trying to intrude into the system. They are different from attacks that simply deny users access to the system (blocking), or attacks that are not focused on a particular target such as viruses and worms (malware). Intrusion attacks are designed to gain access to a specific targeted system and are commonly referred to as hacking, although that is not the term hackers themselves use. Hackers call this type of attack cracking,

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which means intruding onto a system without permission, usually with malevolent intent. Any attack designed to breach security, either via some operating system flaw or any other means, can be classified as cracking. As you progress through this book you will encounter a few specific methods for intruding on a system. In many cases, if not most, the idea is to exploit some software flaw to gain access to the target system.

Using security flaws is not the only method for intruding into a system. In fact, some methods can be technologically much easier to execute. For example, one completely not technologically based method for breaching a system’s security is called social engineering, which, as the name implies, relies more on human nature than technology. This was the type of attack that the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick most often used. Social engineering uses standard con artist techniques to get users to offer up the information needed to gain access to a target system. The way this method works is rather simple. The perpetrator obtains preliminary information about a target organization, such as the name of its system administrator, and leverages it to gain additional information from the

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system’s users. For example, he might call someone in accounting and claim to be one of the company’s technical support personnel. The intruder could use the system administrator’s name to validate that claim. He could then ask various questions to learn additional details about the system’s specifications. A savvy intruder might even get a person to provide a username and password. As you can see, this method is based on how well the intruder can manipulate people and actually has little to do with computer skills.

Social engineering and exploiting software flaws are not the only means of executing an intrusion attack. The growing popularity of wireless networks gives rise to new kinds of attacks. The most obvious and dangerous activity is war- driving. This type of attack is an offshoot of war- dialing. With war-dialing, a hacker sets up a computer to call phone numbers in sequence until another computer answers to try and gain entry to its system. War-driving, using much the same concept, is applied to locating vulnerable wireless networks. In this scenario, a hacker simply drives around trying to locate wireless networks. Many people forget that their wireless network signal often extends as much as 100 feet (thus, past

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walls). At DEF CON 2003, the annual hackers’ convention, contestants participated in a war- driving contest in which they drove around the city trying to locate as many vulnerable wireless networks as they could.

Denial of Service

The third category of attacks is blocking attacks, an example of which is the denial of service attack (DoS). In this attack, the attacker does not actually access the system, but rather simply blocks access to the system from legitimate users. In the words of the CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Coordination Center (the first computer security incident response team), “A ‘denial-of-service’ attack is characterized by an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users of a service from using that service.” One often-used blocking method is flooding the targeted system with so many false connection requests that it cannot respond to legitimate requests. DoS is an extremely common attack method, second only to malware.

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LIKELY ATTACKS We have been examining various possible threats to a network. Clearly, some threats are more likely to occur than others. What are the realistic dangers facing individuals and organizations? What are the most likely attacks, and what are common vulnerabilities? Understanding the basics of existing threats and the likelihood that they will cause problems for users and organizations is important.

FYI: Likelihood of Attacks

The likelihood of a particular attack depends on the type of organization the network serves. The data presented here is applicable to most network systems. Clearly, a number of factors (including how much publicity a system gets and the perceived value of the data on that system) influence the likelihood of an attack targeting a particular system. Always err on the side of caution when estimating the threats to your network.

The most likely threat to any computer or network

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is the computer virus. For example, in just the month of October 2017, McAfee listed 31 active viruses (https://home.mcafee.com/virusinfo/virus- calendar). Each month, several new virus outbreaks are typically documented. New viruses are constantly being created, and old ones are still out there.

Note that many people do not update their antivirus software as often as they should. The evidence for this fact is that many of the viruses spreading around the Internet already have countermeasures released, but people are simply not applying them. Therefore, even when a virus is known and protection against it exists, it can continue to thrive because many people do not update their protection or clean their systems regularly. If all computer systems and networks had regularly updated security patches and employed virus-scanning software, a great many virus outbreaks would be avoided altogether, or their effects would at least be minimized.

Blocking has become the most common form of attack besides viruses. As you will learn later in this book, blocking attacks are easier to perpetrate

https://home.mcafee.com/virusinfo/virus-calendar