Intro to Computer Security

Overview
• What is computer security?
• Why is it important?
• Why is it difficult?
• What can be done?
• Course goals

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Textbook & Reading Material

Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman and Mike Speciner, Network Security:
Private Communication in a Public World, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall,
2002. ISBN-10: 0-13-046019-2. ISBN-13:978-0-13-046019-6.

Charles P. Pfleeger and Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Security in Computing,
4th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2006. ISBN-10: 0-13-239077-9. ISBN-13:
978-0-13-239077-4.

William Stallings, Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and
Practices, 4th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN-10: 0-13-187316-4.
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-187316-2.

Ross Anderson, Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable
Distributed Systems, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, 2008. ISBN-10:
0-47-006852-3. ISBN-13: 978-0-47-006852-6.

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Useful Websites
 Wikipedia
  Darknet:http://www.darknet.org.uk/
  DarkReading:http://www.darkreading.com/
 OWASP:https://www.owasp.org/index.php/
Main_Page
 Forbes Firewall:http://www.forbes.com/sites/
firewall/
 Schneier on Security:https://www.schneier.
com/
 Defcon: https://www.defcon.org/
 Daily Beacon UTK: http://utdailybeacon.
com/ 3
What is computer security
• Most computer or software systems are
concerned with correctness: achieving desired
behavior
• Security is concerned with preventing
undesired behavior
- An attacker/adversary who is actively and maliciously
trying to circumvent any protective measures you put in
place

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Kinds of undesired behavior
• Stealing information: Confidentiality
- personal information (SSN, credit card #,…)
- corporate secrets (product plans, source code,…)
• Modifying information or functionality:
Integrity
- altering records (accounts, medical records,…)
- installing malware (trojan, spam, bots,…)
• Denying access: Availability
- unable to purchase products
- unable to access banking information
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The big three (CIA)

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Security Goals -The big three (CIA)
- Security Goals
There are three primary goals in any security
service:
1. Confidentiality
The principle of confidentiality is that only the
sender and the intended recipient
should be able to access the contents of a
message. Confidentiality gets compromised
if an unauthorized person is able to access the
message. Example of this could be a
confidential email message sent by user A to user
B, which is accessed by user C
without the permission or knowledge of A and B.
This type of attack is called
interception.

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Security Goals -The big three (CIA)
(cont.)
2. Integrity
When the contents of a message are changed after the
sender sends it, but before
it reaches the intended recipient, we say that the integrity
of the message is lost.
For example, consider that user A sends message to
user B. User C tampers with a
message originally sent by user A, which is actually
destined for user B. User C
somehow manages to access it, change its contents
and send the changed message
to user B. User B has no way of knowing that the
contents of the message changed after user A had sent
it. User A also does not know about this change. This
type
of attack is called modification.

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Security Goals -The big three (CIA)
(cont.)
 3. Availability
 The principle of availability is that
resources should be available to
authorized
 parties at all times. For example, due to
the intentional actions of an
unauthorized
 user C, an authorized user A may not be
able to contact a server B. This would
failure
 the principle of availability. Such an
attack is called interruption.
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Why is security important
• Several high-profile hacks in recent years
- Sony hack: hackers claimed to have taken over 100
terabytes of data (2014)
- 51 UPS stores PoS systems breached, credit card info
stolen for 105,000 trans. (2014); around 40 million credit
and debit card info stolen from Target (2013)
- Adobe: stolen source code and 130 million customer
records including passwords (2013)
- SecurID: stolen tokens permitting compromise of
customers using RSA SecurID devices
- Everywhere in the news…

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 Why is security difficult
• A hacker is not a normal user
- If a typical user accidentally finds a bug that results
in a crash, he will try to avoid it
- A hacker will actively attempt to find bugs in rare
feature interactions and edge cases, and exploit
them to achieve his malicious goals

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 Why is security difficult
(Cont’d)
• It is hard to test
- Software testing or quality assurance follows well-
defined procedures to determine if a software
implements a desired functionality
- How do you determine if a software does not allow
for undesired functionalities? (Penetration testing can
help but only up to a point)

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 Why is security difficult
(Cont’d)
• Principle of Easiest Penetration
- Computer systems are a complex, “target-rich”
environment consisting of: software, hardware, storage
media, data, peripheral devices, people, etc.
- Your security is only as good as your weakest point
- Your computer system is part of “network of systems”
- Increased connectivity: ubiquitous access with mobile
devices and wireless technologies
- Many valuable assets online

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 Why is security difficult
(Cont’d)
• Security is interdisciplinary
- Draws on all areas of CS and other disciplines
>Theory (especially cryptography)
> Networking
> Programming languages/compilers
> Operating systems
> Databases
> AI/learning theory
> Hardware/Computer architecture
> psychology

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 Why is security difficult
(Cont’d)
• Security nowadays is not just about “security”
- Prevention: traditional sense of security…
- Detection, response, audit
> know you are being attacked
> quickly stop the attack
> identify the attacker
> prevent the attack from recurring
- Recovery
> can be more important than prevention
- Economics, insurance, risk management
- Security is a process, not a product

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 What can be done
• Absolute or perfect security is impossible in
any useful system
• Good security is about risk management and
tradeoff

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 Security as risk management
• Software and system security really is “all about
managing risk”
• Risk is the possibility that a particular threat will
adversely impact an information system by
exploiting a particular vulnerability
• Risk management is a process for an organization
to identify and address the risks in their
environment
• Systematic techniques are available for assessing
risk

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 Security as a tradeoff
• The goal is not “to make the system as secure as
possible”
• But instead, “to make the system as secure as
possible within certain constraints” (functionality,
cost, efficiency, usability, simplicity, time-to-market,
etc.)
• Important to evaluate the level of security
necessary or appropriate
• More security not always better

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 Security Jargon:
Threats, Vulnerabilities, Attacks
• Many breaches begin by exploiting a
vulnerability
- A weakness or threat that may be exploited to
cause loss or harm
• Threats occur in the software’s design and
implementation
- A flaw is a threat in the design
- A bug is a threat in the implementation
• A vulnerability can be exploited to perpetrate an
attack

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Threats, Vulnerabilities,
Attacks
How to address these problems?

Control: an action, device, procedure, or

technique that removes or reduces a vulnerability,
and subsequently blocks threats and attacks

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Types of attacks

• Active attack: An attempt to alter

system resources or affect their
operation.
• Passive attack: An attempt to
learn or make use of information
from the system that does not
affect system resources.

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Passive Attacks
Disclosure of message contents

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Passive Attacks
Traffic analysis

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Active Attacks
Masquerade

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Active Attacks
Replay

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Active Attacks
Modification

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Active Attacks
Denial of Service (DoS)

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Specific Attacks
Attacks on confidentiality:

Eavesdropping,
packet sniffing,
illegal copying

network

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Attacks on availability: DoS, DDoS attacks (SYN
flooding, smurfing)

Overwhelm or crash servers,

disrupt infrastructure

network

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SYN Flooding

A normal connection
between Alice and
a server, the three-way
handshake is correctly
performed.

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SYN Flooding (Cont’d)
SYN flood: Darth the attacker
sends several packets
but does not send the "ACK"
back to the server.
The connections are hence
half-opened and consuming
server resources.
Alice, a legitimate user,
tries to connect
but the server refuses to
open a connection
resulting in a denial of service.

SYN floods may appear with a wide range of source IP

addresses, giving the appearance of a well distributed
DDoS. 31
Spoofing/Masquerading
Attacks on authenticity: man-in-the-
middle

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Attacks on Password
 Password sniffing
 Brute-force attack
 Dictionary attack
 Phishing
 Social engineering

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Security Services
 Authentication: the assurance that the communicating entity
is the one that it claims to be
- Peer entity authentication: to provide confidence in the identity of
the entities connected
- Data origin authentication: to provide assurance that the source of
received data is as claimed
 Access control: the prevention of unauthorized use of a
resource
 Privacy: protection of personal information

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Security Service Examples

Software &
Hardware Access
Control Systems

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Security Service Examples

Authentication

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Case Study (Preventing
Authentication Hacking Attacks):
Authentication plays a critical role in the security of web
applications. When a user provides his login name and
password to authenticate and prove his identity, the web
application assigns the user
specific privileges to the system, based on the identity
established by the supplied credentials.
An important measure in stopping authentication hacking
attacks is by adding random content on the page
presented to the authenticating client browser. The client
must be
capable of successfully submitting this random content as
part of the authentication process to proceed further in the
web site or application.
The best way to do this is to present the random phrase in
a graphic GIF, JPG or PNG
format using random fonts or colors each time. This can
make it almost impossible for an automated
authentication attacks process to succeed.

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Case Study (Preventing
Authentication Hacking Attacks):

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Security Service Examples
 In a voting system, we are only interested in who gets the most
votes but not who voted for who
 You need to have a valid account to use the lab machines in
EECS
 You don’t want your neighbors to know what appliances are
running in your home at what times
 You need to input your credit card number, security code,
expiration date, mailing address and phone number to make an
online purchase
 You want to hide your real IP address when sending and
receiving packets
 Alice does not want Charlie to know what she said to Bob in the
email. Bob wants to make sure the email does come from Alice.
 Alice needs to commit to a bid she has placed.
 Amazon servers are down the night before Black Friday and
engineers are called to fix this problem
 Mobile phone cloning prevention
 You don’t want your apps to track you
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