Session hijacking relies, in part, on many of the prerequisites needed to successfully sniff a network. For instance, session hijacking attacks increase in complexity for external and switched networks. In other words, sitting on the local LAN (for example, as a disgruntled employee) is a much better strategic position for an attack than sitting outside … Read more
Network-level session hijacking is a hijacking method that focuses on exploiting a TCP/IP connection after initialization or authentication has occurred. There are some specific hijacking techniques that are in this category of attack. Some common ones we will discuss are TCP/IP hijacking, man-in-the-middle attacks, and UDP session hijacking. TCP/IP Session Hijacking TCP/IP session hijacking is … Read more
Session hijacking at the application level focuses on gaining access to a host by obtaining legitimate session IDs from the victim. Essentially, a session ID is an identifier that is applied to a user’s session that allows the server or web resource to identify the “conversation” it is having with the client. So, for example, … Read more
You can categorize a session hijacking attack as either an active attack or a passive attack. Let’s look at both. Active Attack A session hijacking attack is considered active when the attacker assumes the session as their own, thereby taking over the legitimate client’s connection to the resource. In an active attack the attacker is … Read more
DoS attacks come in many flavors, each of which is critical to your understanding of the nature of the DoS attack class. Service Request Floods In this form of DoS attack, a service such as a web server or web application is flooded with requests until all resources are used up. This would be the … Read more
Over the last decade, some of the biggest security threats have come from the use of social networking. The rapid growth of these technologies lets millions of users each day post on Facebook, Twitter, and many other networks. What type of information are they posting? ■ Personal information ■ Photos ■ Location information ■ Friend … Read more
An attacker will look for targets of opportunity or potential victims who have the most to offer. Some common targets include receptionists, help desk personnel, users, executives, system administrators, and outside vendors. Let’s look at each and see why this is. Receptionists—one of the first people visitors see in many companies—represent prime targets. They see … Read more
Sniffing tools are extremely common applications. A few interesting ones are: Wireshark One of the most widely known and used packet sniffers. Offers a tremendous number of features designed to assist in the dissection and analysis of traffic. TCPdump A well-known command-line packet analyzer. Provides the ability to intercept and observe TCP/IP and other packets … Read more
When you are working with Trojans and other malware, you need to be aware of covert and overt channels. As mentioned earlier in the chapter , the difference between the two is that an overt channel is put in place by design and represents the legitimate or intended way for the system or process to … Read more
A wide range of tools exist that are used to take control of a victim’s system and leave behind a gift in the form of a backdoor. This is not an exhaustive list, and newer versions of many of these are released regularly: let me rule—A remote access Trojan authored entirely in Delphi. It uses … Read more