Acsc Case Study And Discussion

Running head: ACSC CASE STUDY AND DISCUSSION
MALWARE AFFECTING WEB HOSTING PROVIDERS
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ACSC CASE STUDY AND DISCUSSION1
ACSC threat lifecycle and MITRE ATTACK framework –
The MITRE ATTACK framework can be defined as a global framework of knowledge,
technologies and techniques which are adopted by any organization for the development of any
threat models and other methodologies in any government sector or private sector, especially in
the cyber security service and product communities. The framework thus developed provides
solution for the various cyber security threats and also effectively develops a cyber-security
protocol. The case study provided here depicts the various unidentified malwares and threats that
have been recently been found compromising the web hosting providers across the various
organizations (Franke and Brynielsson 2014). The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has
investigated this matter of web hosting providers and a malware named as ‘Ghost’ is found out to
be making the remote access tools to make significant modifications in the networks which
might affect the organizations. The ACSC has also provided various tools and techniques of the
Ghost variant and the Rid hijacking tools and techniques have also been discussed. The
procedures that were involved in this case included crypto currency mining, advertising and also
the modification of search engine optimization (SEO). This resulted in the activation of Denial of
Services (DoS) using a tool which is known as fork bomb binary, in many organizations and the
ACSC has conducted this study in order to find out the threats and association of it with the
MITRE ATTACK framework. The ACSC has also stated certain mitigation strategies and
techniques which might reduce the chances of such attack.
Relevance of the incident to that of Verizon Data Breach report –
The Verizon Data Breach report is an annual publication on the various kinds of
information security incidents especially the cases of data breaches in many organization by

ACSC CASE STUDY AND DISCUSSION2
which the organizations are affected in many terms. The data breach report is published every
year by compiling data from various sources and the most common types of breaches described
here is denial of service, inside threats and crime wares that affect the operation of the
organizations over the internet (Bambauer 2013). The ACSC report however deal with the
threats and breaches occurring in the web hosting providers and can be compared similar to that
of the Verizon data Breach report. However, the entities are more vividly described in the
Verizon Report as compared to ACSC. The ACSC also deals with only the data breach cases
occurred in the Australian companies in order to make the Australian online platform to make a
more secure place, but the Verizon Data Breach report deals with the breaches of over 95
countries. The motivation and capabilities of the attackers include the data breach of various web
hosting providers due to the fact of older version of operating system and not using the web
shells properly (Sabillon, Cavaller and Cano 2016). The attackers may implement the Denial of
Service attack in the organizations and thus affect the performance of the entire organizations.
The Ghost malware is one of the examples of the capabilities of the attackers which can affect
the victim’s anti-virus system and thus invading into the victim’s system.
Impact in both technical and business terms –
The incident has several impacts in the organizations that affects technological and
business perspectives of the companies. The technical impacts may be considered to be more
devastating in terms of operation of the company in the internet platform. The hosting providers
were mainly affected due to the attacks and Denial of Service, and thus web hosting platform and
servers were affected due to this attack. The companies also got affected in terms of business
aspects, as because the Ghost and RID hijacking denies the service of the companies and as a
result the clients get refused of the services (Criswell, Dautenhahn and Adve 2014). The