Network Threats

Network Threats
Dr Abid Rauf
1
Opportunity
The Intrusion Triangle
Motive Means
2
Network Threats
• Social Engineering
• Password Guessing
• Malware threats
• Network Sniffing
• DOS & DDOS
• ARP Poisoning
• Advanced Persistent Threats (APT)

Social Engineering
Social Engineering
• Social engineering is essentially the art of gaining access to
buildings, systems or data by exploiting human psychology,
rather than by breaking in or using technical hacking
techniques
• Social engineers depend on the fact that people are unaware
of their valuable information and are careless about
protecting it
• Common targets are help desk personnel, technical support
executives and system administrators
Social Engineering
• Impact of attack on organization
o Economic losses
o Loss of privacy
o Lawsuits and arbitrations
o Damage to reputation
o Temporary or permanent closure
Human Error
Types of Social Engineering
• Human-Based Social Engineering
• Computer-Based Social Engineering
• Mobile-Based Social Engineering

Human-Based Social Engineering
• Impersonation: pretending to be a legitimate or
authorized person (end user, VIP, help desk officer,
technical support person, repairman) either
personally or using a communication media
phone, email
• Eavesdropping – unauthorized listening of
conversations or reading of messages – can be
done using communication channels
• Shoulder Surfing – Obtain sensitive information by
looking over someone’s shoulder or via vision
enhancing devices such as binoculars
• Dumpster Diving: Looking for treasure in someone

else’s trash bins or storage media
• Tailgating: when a person, whether an employee
or not, passes through a secure door without the
knowledge of the person who has gained
legitimate access through it
• Piggy Backing: Allowing unauthorized person
intentionally through a secure door
• Reverse Social Engineering: A situation in which
an attacker presents himself as an authority and
the target seeks his advice offering the
information that he needs
Computer-based Social Engineering
• Pop-up windows : Asking for user’s information
to login or sign-up
• Chain Letters: emails that offer free gifts such as
money and software on the condition that the
user has to forward the mail to the said number
of persons
• Instant Chat Messenger: Gathering personal
information by chatting with a selected online
user to get personal information
• Spam emails: Irrelevant and unwanted emails -

flooding the Internet with the same message
sent to millions
• Example
• Phishing
• Illegitimate email falsely claiming to be from

a legitimate site - attempts to acquire the
user’s personal or account information
• Spear Phishing
• Targeted phishing attack aimed at specific

individuals within an organization
• Whaling
• Extension of Spear phishing that targets upper

level corporate management in an attempt to
obtain restricted internal information
• Vishing
• Electronic fraud tactic in which individuals are

tricked into revealing critical financial or
personal information
• Vishing works like phishing but does not always

occur over the Internet and is carried out using
voice technology
• Pharming
• Hijacking the intended site’s DNS (domain

name system) server in order to redirect the
victim to fake website that looks like the
intended site
Mobile-based Social Engineering
• Publishing malicious apps with attractive

features and similar names to that of popular
apps
• Repackaging legitimate apps
Mobile-based Social Engineering
• SMiShing
– Sending a SMS text message that urges the
recipient to call a phone number to solve a fraud
problem with their bank account or debit card
– The pre-recorded message asks him to provide

critical information that is unsurprisingly revealed
to the attacker
Social Engineering Counter Measures
• Password Policies
– Periodic password change
– Avoiding guessable passwords
– Account blocking after failed attempts
– Length and complexity of passwords
– Secrecy of passwords
• Physical Security Policies
– Identification of employees by issuing ID cards
– Accessing area restrictions
– Proper shredding of useless documents
– Security check before employment
• Effective Training program consisting of all security policies and
methods to increase awareness on social engineering
• Operational Guidelines to ensure security of the sensitive
information and authorized use of resources
• Classification of Information as top secret, proprietary, for internal
use only, for public use etc
• Access Privileges - administrator, user and guest accounts with
proper authorization
• Two factor Authentication
Password Guessing
Guessing Passwords
• Attackers’ strategies
• Non-electronic attacks: Attacks that don't

require technical knowledge to crack
passwords
• shoulder surfing, dumpster diving

Guessing Passwords
• Active online attacks: Involves direct

communication with victim’s machine
• Brute forcing, Dictionary attacks

Guessing Passwords
• Passive online attacks: Eavesdropping on

network password exchanges - Password
cracking without communicating with the
victim
• Sniffing
Guessing Passwords
• Offline attack: Attacker copies target’s

password file and then tries to crack passwords
in his own system at different location
• Ophcrack, John the Ripper

Guidelines
• Use strong passwords
• Change default passwords
• Set password length
• Password format
• Mix upper/ lower case alphabets, numerals

and symbols
• Avoid obvious passwords

Guidelines
• Password checkers
• Check password against dictionary of weak

passwords
Guidelines

passwords
pakistan
Guidelines

passwords
1qaz2wsx3edc
Guidelines

passwords
5N%5#B{Vg$9s(.av
Guidelines
• Password generation
• Produces random passwords
• Users – not allowed to pick passwords

Guidelines
• Password generation
• Produces random passwords
• Users – not allowed to pick passwords

Guidelines
• Password Aging
• Expiry date of password is set
• Forces user to change passwords
• Additional mechanisms must be enforced to

prevent from reverting to previous passwords
Countering password guessing
Anderson’s formula:
• 'P' probability of guessing a password in

specified period of time
• 'G' number of guesses tested in 1 time unit
• 'T' number of time units in which guessing occurs
• 'N' number of possible passwords
• Then P ≥ TG/N
Example-1
• Choose a password which is 6 chars long and the
password can contain only a-z, A-Z, 0-9. If the attacker
could guess 10,000 pwd /sec and the probability that
an attacker could guess is 0.5 then what is the time
frame in which the password would be compromised ?

Example
• P = 0.5
• G = 10,000
• N = A^S where A is the no of allowed chars in the
password and S is the length of the password
• Here A (26 + 26 + 10) = 62 and S=6, so N = 62 ^ 6
Now we want to find T and from Anderson's formula
• T <= NP/G
T <= 62 ^ 6 * 0.5 / 10,000
<= 2,840,012 sec
<= 33 days

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The Intrusion Triangle

• DOS & DDOS

• Advanced Persistent Threats (APT)

• Human-Based Social Engineering

• Computer-Based Social Engineering

• Mobile-Based Social Engineering

• Dumpster Diving: Looking for treasure in someone

• Chain Letters: emails that offer free gifts such as

money and software on the condition that the

user has to forward the mail to the said number

• Spam emails: Irrelevant and unwanted emails -

• Illegitimate email falsely claiming to be from

• Targeted phishing attack aimed at specific

• Extension of Spear phishing that targets upper

• Electronic fraud tactic in which individuals are

• Vishing works like phishing but does not always

• Hijacking the intended site’s DNS (domain

• Publishing malicious apps with attractive

– The pre-recorded message asks him to provide

• Non-electronic attacks: Attacks that don't

• shoulder surfing, dumpster diving

• Active online attacks: Involves direct

• Brute forcing, Dictionary attacks

• Passive online attacks: Eavesdropping on

• Offline attack: Attacker copies target’s

• Ophcrack, John the Ripper

• Change default passwords

• Set password length

• Mix upper/ lower case alphabets, numerals

• Avoid obvious passwords

• Check password against dictionary of weak

• Check password against dictionary of weak

• Check password against dictionary of weak

• Check password against dictionary of weak

• Produces random passwords

• Users – not allowed to pick passwords

• Produces random passwords

• Users – not allowed to pick passwords

• Expiry date of password is set

• Forces user to change passwords

• Additional mechanisms must be enforced to

• 'P' probability of guessing a password in

• 'G' number of guesses tested in 1 time unit

• 'T' number of time units in which guessing occurs

• 'N' number of possible passwords

password can contain only a-z, A-Z, 0-9. If the attacker

could guess 10,000 pwd /sec and the probability that

an attacker could guess is 0.5 then what is the time

frame in which the password would be compromised ?

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