Hey Guys, welcome to yet another interesting
session by Intellipaat and today we are going to discuss about cyber security.
In an increasingly digital-driven world, that
we are living today, information security is more important than ever.
Cyber security is no longer optional but critical to the success of organizations regardless
of their size, industry vertical, and geographic location.
Now think for a moment, Will you ever leave
your home or office unattended?
Obviously, we lock them.
Right?
But, when it comes to data, many of us tend to be casual.
Data is the asset that powers and enables
today's businesses and individuals alike.
We all store and access our data from various devices such as laptops, mobiles, documents
and so on.
Any loss of data can affect the organization in terms of time, cost, confidentiality and
competitive edge.
Initially, the internet was developed to build
communication for the military, government and scientific communities.
But, advances in technology has changed the way we live and do business.
The internet has grown in the past two decades beyond anybody's wildest imagination.
Our world is more connected than ever before, this brings huge opportunities and benefits.
But it also brings risk to the data that is
stored on the internet.
Criminals take advantage of technology, resulting in cyber crime at any point of time, anywhere.
No business is completely fool proof, we live in an era of cyber insecurity and attacks
are common; it can be a malware, virus, Trojan, phishing attack or a distributed denial of
service attack.
I am sure you are aware of the WannaCry ransomware
attack which happened in May, 2017.
This WannaCry attack impacted over 10,000 organizations and 200,000 individuals in over
150 countries.
Just imagine, you are seated at home, working
on your computer, either answering your email or polishing a work-related presentation.
Suddenly, a message blinks on your screen.
The message curtly demands that you send cash to a certain destination, failure to do this
will indefinitely lock your computer and all your documents stored become inaccessible.
Many organizations like FedEx, Nissan, Deutsche
Bahn in Germany, Russian Central Bank and Russian Railways in Russia, National Health
Service in the UK got affected by this attack.
And they had to pay to get their data.
From this incident we understand that a threat in information security will result in loss
of millions of dollars, causing damage to reputation and which might lead to legal prosecution.
Hence, it is very important to secure the data from various online attacks.
As we all are aware that, any computer connected to a computing network is potentially vulnerable
to a cyberattack.
So, what is a cyberattack?
A cyberattack is a deliberate exploitation of computer systems, technology-dependent
enterprises and internet.
It achieves its malicious goal by altering computer code, data and logic with upsetting
consequences.
Now let us discuss about various cyberattacks briefly.
In general, the cyberattacks can be classified as
Network attacks Web attacks
OS, applications and software attacks & Social engineering attacks
So, what is a network attack?
Network attack is an attack that occurs at the network.
The attacks that occur at network include sniffing, spoofing, man-in-middle attack,
and Dos attacks Now, Let us see what these are one by one.
Spoofing is a method used to get unauthorized
access to computers, where the intruder sends messages with a source IP address which has
been forged to denote that the messages are coming from a trusted host.
A sniffer is a programme or a device that is used to examine data traveling on a network.
Man-in-middle attack.
As the name indicates, a man-in-the-middle attack occurs when a third person is actively
monitoring, capturing, and controlling your communication transparently without your permission.
DOS or Denial of service attack.
So, In this case, an attacker sends many links or information requests to a target system
to overload it.
Now we will discuss web attacks.
It includes phishing, SQL injection and Cross site scripting
Phishing technique is a combination of fraudulent e-mails and websites by cyber criminals to
gain information illegally.
It uses different techniques to attract its victims into providing information such as
passwords and credit card numbers.
SQL injection and cross-site scripting both are code injecting attacks, in which a malicious
code is injected into a website to get sensitive information from the database.
Now, let us move on to software attack.
So, Software attack includes viruses, worms, and Trojan horse.
A computer virus attaches itself to a program or a file, enabling it to spread from one
computer to another.
Like a biological virus, a computer virus can range in severity: some may cause mildly
annoying effects while others can damage your hardware, software or files.
Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on your
computer, but it actually cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious
program.
A worm is similar to a virus by design and
is considered to be a subclass of the virus.
Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the capability to travel
without any human action.
Due to copying nature of a worm and its capability to travel across networks, it results in a
situation in which worms consume more system memory than usual
A Trojan horse is a software program which
hides its true nature and exposes its designed behaviour only when activated.
It will actually do damage once installed on your computer.
Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.
The last type of attack is social engineering.
Have you heard about this term?
So, Social engineering is a human-based attack, in which the user is convinced to reveal confidential
information to the attacker.
Social engineering can be divided into human-based and computer-based techniques.
Human-based attacks aim at confusing people
in person or over the phone and always use imitation to trick users into releasing information.
For example, the attacker might pretend to be a co-worker who has some kind of urgent
problem that requires access to additional network resources.
Then comes Computer-based attacks.
So, Computer-related attacks still target the users of computer system; however, they
do so with computer-based processes like, e-mail attachments, websites & instant messaging
For example, A pop-up window appears on the screen saying that the user has lost the network
link, and the user is prompted to re-enter the username and password.
A previously installed program by the intruder will then email the data back to a remote
location.
And perhaps, these are the most common security threats you'll come across.
Now, you might have got a question in your
mind.
Who plans and executes these kind of attacks?
How will you come to know that your system is attacked and how can you prevent this?
These types of attacks are mainly done by hackers.
So what is hacking?
Hacking is usually done to gain unauthorized access to a computer system or a computer
network, either to harm the system or to steal sensitive information available on the computer.
And the person who does this hacking is known as a hacker.
Hacking can be anything that is related to internet or computer system.
Some of the common types of hacking include: website hacking, network hacking, Email hacking,
password hacking and computer hacking.
Now let us understand what is ethical hacking?
Ethical Hackers are also called as white hat hackers.
They never intend to harm a system, rather they try to find out weaknesses in a computer
or a network system as a part of penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.
Ethical hacking is completely legal, and it is one of the demanding jobs available in
the IT industry right now.
There are numerous companies that hire ethical hackers for penetration testing and vulnerability
assessments so that the real hackers can be stopped from doing any harm.
So, Don't you think, becoming an ethical hacker is interesting and highly rewarding
as well!
Now, let us see what are the tools used in
ethical hacking?
NMAP: NMAP stands for Network Mapper.
It is mainly used for network discovery and security auditing.
This can be installed on all major computer operating systems such as Windows, Mac and
Linux.
Using IP packets NMAP will be able to determine:
what hosts are available on the network, what services those hosts are offering,
what operating systems they are running on &
what type of firewalls are in use.
Next is Metasploit: it is a powerful tool
used in ethical hacking and can be used with command prompt or with Web UI.
Using Metasploit one can: Conduct basic penetration tests on small
networks Run spot checks on the vulnerabilities
Discover the network or import scan data &
Browse exploit modules and run individual exploits on hosts
Third tool used is, SuperScan: So, SuperScan
is a tool for network administrators to scan TCP ports and resolve hostnames.
This tool can be used to: Perform ping scans and port scans using
any IP range.
Scan any port range from a built-in list or any given range.
View responses from connected hosts.
Modify the port list and port descriptions using the built-in editor.
Merge port lists to build new ones.
Next in the list is, Ettercap: It supports
active and passive dissection including features for network and host analysis.
It is mainly used to: Sniff on a switched LAN between two hosts
Inject characters into a server or to a client while maintaining a live connection &
Sniff an SSH connection in full duplex
Then we have NetStumbler: This tool is used
to prevent wardriving, which works on windows based operating systems.
It is used to: Identify the Access Point network configuration
Find causes of interference Access the strength of signals received &
Detect unauthorized access points
So, these were some tools used in ethical hacking.
Now, let us see how ethical hacking process
works: The ethical hacking process varies from organization
to organization.
However, in general the ethical hacking process can be categorized into six phases.
Reconnaissance Scanning
Gaining Access Maintaining Access
Clearing Tracks and Reporting
In the first phase, a hacker will gather the
required information using different tools such as NMAP, Hping, and Ettercap.
Once a hacker gets all the information, he actively probes into target machine for vulnerabilities
in the system and he can use the tools like Nessus, Nexpose, and NMAP.
The vulnerabilities are identified, and the hacker will attempt to exploit it in order
to enter into the system.
The primary tool that is used in this process is Metasploit.
Then the hacker will install some backdoors to enter into the system when he needs access
to this owned system in future.
And Metasploit is the preferred tool in this process.
Then the hacker would delete logs of all the activities that take place during the hacking
process.
And finally the Ethical Hacker compiles a report about his findings, like
the tools used, the success rate, vulnerabilities found, and the exploit processes.
Now, For instance, consider email hacking
and understand how hacking process works.
There are different tools and techniques available for email hacking.
Let's say, you are trying to send an email from your account, and suddenly you receive
a pop-up message to re-enter your login credentials.
In general, you will just re-login to your account and continue with your account.
However, what if the pop-up message was fraudulent
and it just redirected you to a different website to record your login credentials.
This is called as spoofing.
This is the most widely used attack in email hacking.
So, how to detect if your email has been hacked?
Here are some tips to identify whether your email is hacked or not:
The recipients of spam emails include a bunch of people you know.
You try to access your account and the password no longer works.
You try to access the "Forgot Password" link and it does not go to the expected email.
Your Sent Items folder contains a bunch of spams you are not aware of having sent.
So, what can you do if your account is hacked,
well here are some tips: You can change the passwords immediately.
Notify your friends, not to open links that they receive from your email account.
Contact the service provider and report that your account has been hacked.
Install a good antivirus on your computer and update it.
You can also set up a double authentication password if it is supported.
So, this is how the hacking process works?
But how do you prevent this?
Well, this can be prevented by an ethical hacker.
Ethical hackers are employed by organizations
to protect networks and computers from attacks.
Hackers illegally penetrate computers to access private and sensitive information.
Although ethical hacker uses the same skills as that of the unethical hacker, the former
actually protects the data and computer network system.
The main goal is to uncover any weak areas in the system.
Once a weakness is found, it is patched.
As part of the cyber security team, the ethical hacker also ensures that the system is firewalled,
security protocols are in place and sensitive files are encrypted.
Ethical hacker plays a very important role in any organization's digital assets protection
protocol.
He acts like a digital soldier for an organization.
So, Isn't he doing a great job by protecting sensitive information?
Ethical hacking as a career offers immense
opportunities.They are highly regarded in all digital organizations and work as information
security professionals.
Ethical hacking's growing demand and suitability to candidates having diverse educational background
makes it an attractive field of opportunities.
Once you become a certified ethical hacker, you will get immense opportunities to work
in the security field.
So, Some of these opportunities are: Software Engineer
Information Security Consultant Information Security Analyst
Network Support Engineer Technical Support Engineer
Manager IT Security & VAPT Consultant.
This graph depicts the median salary of ethical
hackers.
So, Are you excited about becoming a professional ethical hacker?
Well, this is the right time to start your
career and you are in the right place.
Professional ethical hacking training will help you master the ethical hacking process
and different attack methodologies with prevention techniques.
It will also help you to gain knowledge of IDS, firewalls, honeypots and wireless hacking.
Join our Ethical hacker training course today and see your career soar to the skies.
Thank you for watching this video.
For enquiries, feel free to contact us.