A Hacker Stole My Life. And I Got It Back.
Cyberattacks can cost you more than just money. But also, they teach you a great lesson. The story of Xander Koppelmans.
Your company’s website is like the store window of a brick-and-mortar shop. Its design is crucial for your customers and partners, and you need to keep it safe. Yet globally, around 30,000 websites are hacked daily. Here's a guide to common types of attacks.
A denial of service (DoS) is a form of cyberattack in which the perpetrators seek to disrupt or crash a website, network, or other online service by overloading it with a high volume of fake or junk requests. Cybercriminals typically use networks of distributed, compromised devices to disrupt systems by targeting one or more of the components necessary to establish a connection to a network resource, making the DoS attack a DDoS – as in distributed denial of service – attack. The most common types are:
Denial of service (DoS) vs. Distributed denial of service (DDoS)The difference is in the number of attacking machines. A DoS attack typically utilizes a script or tool, originates from a single device, and targets one specific server or endpoint. In contrast, DDoS attacks are executed by an extensive network of attacker-controlled compromised devices – also known as a botnet – and can be used to overload selected devices, applications, websites, services or even victims’ whole networks. Source: ESET |
Cross-site scripting (XSS) allows attackers to compromise the interactions between users and a vulnerable application. How? According to OWASP, cross-site scripting attacks “are a type of injection, in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted websites.” When the malicious code executes inside the victim’s browser, the attackers can fully compromise the victim’s interaction with the application.
The vulnerability allows attackers to circumvent the same-origin policy designed to differentiate websites from each other. The cybercriminals can impersonate the victims and carry out any actions that the users can perform and, therefore, access any of the users’ data. If the victims have privileged access within the application, then the attackers might gain full control over all the application’s functionality and data.
According to MIT Technology Review, 2021 broke the record for zero-day hacking attacks. A zero-day exploit – a way to launch a cyberattack via a previously unknown vulnerability – is just about the most valuable thing a hacker can possess; these exploits can carry price tags north of $1 million on the open market.
A zero-day attack usually starts with a completely unknown security vulnerability in the computer OS or application. A similar, slightly less dangerous case is the n-day: a vulnerability in the OS or applications for which either the patch has not been released or the application developers were unaware of or did not have sufficient time to address. In either case, the exploitation happens before everyone (who needs to know) is aware of the vulnerability or before a patch is publicly available. That’s why users who trust the source of software patches often never know about the existence of exploits.
Learn more about the recently discovered Log4Shell vulnerability and how to detect it. According to some sources, the results of this flaw could affect hundreds of millions of devices for many years to come.
The best-known example of a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack is active eavesdropping; in this case an attacker intercepts traffic between two or more victims. This allows the attacker not only to see the conversation but to alter it with neither victim being aware that the attacker is manipulating the interaction.
This is a particular result of the ability to subvert the authentication protocol. The National Institute of Standards and Technology writes that in the context of authentication, the attacker is usually positioned between claimant and verifier, between registrant and cloud service provider (CSP) during enrollment, or between subscriber and CSP during authenticator binding.
A brute-force attack uses trial and error to crack passwords, login credentials, or encryption keys to gain unauthorized access to individual accounts and organizations’ systems and networks. Often, botnets are used since they’re faster due to the high volume of devices making the guess in parallel. Botnets are also harder to block since they include a wide range of IPs.
Motivations for such an attack include spreading malware, exploiting company ads or activity data, and damaging corporate reputation. “Many popular websites and services today will block access after 5 to 10 wrong guesses from a specific IP address. A botnet has a better chance to guess the right thing using a range of IPs in a specific geographic region,” explains ESET expert Ondřej Kubovič.
The hacker tries multiple usernames and passwords, often using a computer to test a wide range of combinations until they find the correct login information. The attacker uses software or at least some code or script that can guess thousands of passwords within a few seconds or minutes.
Cyberattacks can cost you more than just money. But also, they teach you a great lesson. The story of Xander Koppelmans.
And that’s exactly why we’re so vulnerable to cyberattacks, says Jake Moore, an ESET cybersecurity specialist and a white hat hacker with 14 years of experience in digital forensics and cybercrime investigations. He never lacks motivation to scrutinize and test how small businesses perceive and handle cybersecurity. In most cases, the answer is: rather poorly.
Passwords were once reserved for secret agents and their criminal counterparts. These days, everybody uses passwords. In fact, most of us have too many to keep up with, which is why we often recycle the same ones for multiple purposes. But, only people in positions of power really need to worry about passwords, right?
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