Malicious Attacks
By Chris Berg-Jones, Ethan Ungchusri,
and Angela Wang
Viruses
• Small amount of code that spreads from one
computer to another
• Usually transmitted through e-mail
attachments
• Execute as part of another program or
attached to a document
• Spreads and infects other programs and
documents
Viruses
• The Melissa virus of 1999 sent out email
attachments to 50 people in the address book,
and it spread so fast that Microsoft and other
companies had to shut down their email
service
• The ILOVEYOU virus in 2000 took a similar
approach, and sent out email attachments to
all contacts of infected users
Trojans
• Don’t self-replicate or spread to other
computers
• Called Trojans because they are disguised as
legitimate software
• Once a trojan horse is opened, the hacker can
remotely access the computer
– Keyloggers
– corrupt files
– steal data, etc
Worms
• Have the ability to copy themselves to other
computers over a network that they are on
• Do not have to be attached to a file or
program
• The worm called “storm” appeared in 2007
and has infected at least 5 million computers,
adding them to a ‘botnet’ which runs software
in the background over a peer to peer
network
Phising
What is phising?
• Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of
attempting to acquire sensitive information such
as usernames, passwords and credit card details
by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an
electronic communication.
• Communications purporting to be from popular
social web sites, auction sites, online payment
processors or IT administrators are commonly
used to lure the unsuspecting public.
How does phising work?
• Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging, and it often directs
users to enter details at a fake website
whose look and feel are almost identical to
the legitimate one.
Phising methods
• Filter evasion
– Phishers have used images instead of text to make it
harder for anti-phishing filters to detect text commonly
used in phishing e-mails.
• Website forgery
– An attacker can use flaws in a trusted website's own scripts
against the victim.
• Phone phishing
– Messages that claimed to be from a bank told users to dial
a phone number regarding problems with their bank
accounts. Once the phone number was dialed, prompts
told users to enter their account numbers and PIN.
Damage caused by phising
• Denial of access to email
• Financial loss
• United States businesses lose an estimated 2
billion dollars per year as their clients become
victims.
Why you should watch out
• Social networking sites are now a prime target
of phishing, since the personal details in such
sites can be used in identity theft
• Experiments show a success rate of over 70%
for phishing attacks on social networks.
• Attacker can use the victim's sensitive
information for fraudulent purposes
or spamming.
Malicious Attacks:
Hackers
By: Angela Wang
What is a Hacker Cracker?
• "A person who delights in having an intimate
understanding of the internal workings of a
system, computers and computer networks in
particular."
More on Hackers
• A hacker is a person who breaks into
computers, usually by gaining administrative
controls.
• Not to be confused with the cyber-criminal
hackers known as “crackers”.
History
• Before the internet, there were multiple independent and
parallel networks only partially aware of each other’s
existence.
• They created an ideal information sharing as a practical
strategy among the community
• Software sharing emphasizing the right to “fork”
History cont’
• The earliest networks were found at academic settings such as
college campuses including Carnegie Mellon.
• When the Internet began they evolved into a hacker
community with the rise of the free software movement
•
Much of the hacker community system originated at MIT and
at the Homebrew Computer Club.
What usually happens.
• Hacker scans the Internet for available “ports” (openings in
computer that allows data to pass through a network) on the
Internet.
• Hacker finds an unprotected port and inserts a TROJAN HORSE
virus!!
• Trojan Horse Virus rides along attaching itself to a standard
program.
• Unsuspecting person activates program and the virus
transmits all access and control to the hacker.
To Avoid…being hacked
• Don’t give out passwords or usernames even to
administrators .
• Change your password every once in a while.
• Should obtain a "firewall". A firewall, when combined
with a good anti-virus program, helps stop
unauthorized access on your computer, prevents
virus infection, and "cloaks" your data ports against a
hacker scanning for openings.
Example of recent Hackers
• Google vs. China
• Six students from a prestigious Jiatong
Chinese University hacked into Internet
Explorer 6
• Although it is denied they are working for the
government, there are still strong evidence for
their involvement.
Works Cited
• Marshall, Marshall. "HowStuffWorks "How
Computer Viruses Work"" HowStuffWorks Learn How Everything Works! Web. 14 Jan.
2010.
<http://www.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm>.
• “Trojan horse (computing).” “Wikipedia.”
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(c
omputing)>