Cyber Threats: Understanding the Various Forms of Cyber-Attacks

This report discusses the various forms of cyber-attacks, including Trojans, worms, and ransomware, and the impact they have on individuals and organizations. It also provides tips on how to protect information systems from cyber threats.

Running head: CYBER THREATS
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Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The rapid evolvement of the technology in the modern society allowing creativity in
almost every aspects of life including black market. As the applications of the technology is
spreading more than before and peoples are also depending on the technology for automate or
ease most of their crucial tasks. Nowadays, Internet contains many vital and crucial information
associated with the user data. Protecting user data is also an important aspect in the technologies
development. Security measures such as encryption, firewall and many more security measures
are implemented as the networks grew more complex and the number of devices associated with
the network become more mobile and more varied. This security measures are implemented for
protecting the vital information from the third parties. There are several cases where, third parties
were able to gain entrance to the plant’s network, stimulated in order to manipulate the
manufacturing network and then debilitated to the shut-down the valves of the plant’s blast
incinerators. In the dialect of the industry, this can be called as a “kinetic” or physical attack
against the hard resources present. Cyber-attacks has become one of the critical issue which is
hard to solve. In past years, several huge security breach shocked the world as millions user
account has been compromised with the vital information. However, third parties are not always
design any malicious software for data collection. For instance, Ransomware ware infected in a
computer to block entree to the system until a sum of money is paid as a ransom.

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Figure 1: Cyber threats impact on the world
Source: (Linkov et al., 2013)
The cyber-attacks were firstly focused on the individuals and around 2015 the attackers
were started focusing on the power industry. Several organization faced this type of threat.
Recently, Social media sites like yahoo and linked in faced cyber-attacks where lot of user
accounts has been compromised. Usually, third parties are driven by the money. Third parties
primarily targets large monoculture where lot of valuable information can be found. They target
those system which are connected with the business and stores a lot of valuable information

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(Zhang, 2013). In the last decades there are several cyber-attack which are responsible for
serious amount of damage.
Trojan (generally called as Trojan horse) is a malicious computer software which deceives
user of its true intent. The name Trojan came from the ancient language of Greece. The original
Trojan horse was used to sneak into the enemy territory with highly fortified gate (Loukas, Gan
& Vuong, 2016). The horse seems like a charm and the attackers take advantage of the horse to
breach the defenders wall. In similar fashion, the Trojan virus sneak past the computer security
such as firewall by tricking the user (Marinos, 2013). It looks like a normal software and
designed with different names. So users was not able to identify the risk and install it on their
computer. The designers of the program used it to achieve some goals as follows:
 It is designed to trick user or system into installing the program. Usually, it comes as an
extra piece of software with bundle. It uses users as an entrance vehicle to breach into the
system.
 It blends with existing installed program which runs on the same system. As the name
implies, it camouflages itself so user is totally unaware of its activity and continue their
activity.
Attackers used a myriad methods for blend the malicious program capabilities into the
normal software. These methods include employing simple but highly effective naming games
while utilizing the attacking software distributing sites, executable wrappers and manipulating
source code. It manipulates the windows to create an .EXE suffix where the text file must be end
with the .txt. The unknown .exe files cause trouble around the system (Heickero, 2013). The
malicious program camouflages itself like a text file when noticed in the file explorer. Most user

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would “double click” on the file to check the content inside it. Usually it shows an executable
file with in the name of “just_text exe”.
Figure 2: Worm camouflage
Source: (Kozik& Choras, 2013)
After that, it creates a backdoor into the system by copying the vital information from useful
programs.
Worms are the one of the most dangerous program which can replicate itself from a
system to another. Generally, worms existed in the files as word and excel and uses the hosts in
a different way than virus. Generally, malicious files in an email needs to open in order to
execute it. However, worms work differently as it does not need any interaction and can replicate
itself to spread into systems. The first computer word known as the Morris worm that gained
significant media interaction. It was coded by a graduate student from Cornell University and
released from MIT to disguise the real location. He was lately fined 10,500 dollar and three years
of jail sentence as well. There are also several type worms which travelled through internet to
many systems. Email worms is one of the most effective computer worm. Typically, the worm
arrived as a email where the worm is contained in the body or the attachments. Most of the email
system requires to open the attachment in order to active the worm. However, the targeted mail

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looks like normal mail and often seems looks comes from a valid sender. Then the worm will
send itself to other address. So, recipients of email worms should assume that they are not sent
by the person listed in the 'From' field of e-mail message.
There are also other worms like IRC, internet worms and file sharing worms. Internet or
the network worms are mostly targets the low level TCP/IP ports, instead of travelling via
advanced level protocols such as IRC or email (Laidlaw & Hillick, 2016). The worm hide itself
under a harmless name. The virus is readily available for download through the P2P internetwork
and distribution of the infected file will continue (Parkinson et al., 2017). Malware remains a
dangerous and consistent threat and it evolves to stay undetected and breach more secure
technologies. In 2003, the internet was effected by a web-server worm which brought down
several important system including bank of America’s ATM service (Brenner, 2013). The worm
is known as Sql Slammer and followed denial of service to significant inhibit web traffic. It was
suing a buffer overflow bug in Microsoft sql server and database engine products.
Rensomware is another most dangerous threat which landscape shifted dramatically with the
appearance of WannaCry and Petya. This two rensomware is responsible for panicking the world
by catching many organization off-guard with infections spreading rapidly across corporate
networks. It is one of the key cyber threat faced by the millions of peoples and it impacts on
financial, disruption and reputational damage (Le et al., 2017). Targeted ransomware attacks,
infection of multiple computers continue to pose a threat involving the compromise of an
organization’s network. Although less prevalent than mass mailed threats, the damage caused by
a targeted attack is potentially much higher. Rensomeware effects many organizations and
individuals as several systems were affected. As the name implies the system effected by the
ransomware will be unlocked. Ransomware ware designed to block access to a computer system

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until a sum of money is paid (Fransen, Smulders & Kerkdijk, 2015). But a ransomware attack
implications beyond the cost of the ransom itself. Businesses that experience a ransomware
attack face
 Possible permissible penalties rising from pitiable security or handling of data
 Reputational damage
 System interruption, affecting the ability to operate
 Damage of proprietary data
 Compromised data
In order to protect the computer systems from different kinds of the network attacks like the
ransom wares, Trojan horses viruses and other types of the computer system virus, various
precautions can be taken. Some of the major steps that can be taken up are:
1. Antivirus: The user of the system must install proper computer antivirus software in order to
protect the data in the computer systems. An antivirus is specially designed computer software
that restricts the virus from acting in a system. The work of the software is to make sure no other
software can get into the system without the consent of the user. Even if some files enter the
computer then the software automatically deletes the same of asks the user for permissions to
delete the file and recheck for any further problems. This is one of the most important things that
is to be done in order to protect user data.
2. Use of Original Software and the Operating systems: It is often seen that many users use
software that is pirated or patched, also Operating systems that are patched by unknown persons.
These have become the major source where viruses and malware enter the computer system. It is
very much advisable to the users so that they never use these kinds of the software so that
chances of the computer is secured. The problem with the patches system is that the software
once patched does not get the security system updates and hence become vulnerable to the world.

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3. Using un-authenticated networks: This is one of the major problems where it is often seen that
connecting to inappropriate systems. Sometimes these networks are made in such a way that
whenever any user connects to the network some of the virus files are automatically downloaded
in the host system and hence these files stales the user data and sends the files to different
sources (Blakemore, 2016). It is advised by many researchers to not connect to networks that are
not authenticated.
4. Responding to malicious mails. This is one of the other major problem which is often faced
by many of the computer systems. IT is often seen that many of the users get mails related to
winning money and other such things, but often these mail systems contains sources of viruses.
These viruses are auto downloaded and gets stored in the system of the victim for starts stealing
data.
5. Encrypting the system. This is one of the major process where it can be seen when the
system is properly then it gets harder to the hackers to access the system of the system.
Encrypting is one of the most powerful technique which can be used for the purpose of keeping
data safe from the users.
6. Keeping strong passwords: This is one of the most secured yet simple thing that can be done
in order to make a system safer. Tough passwords can prevent the hackers from guessing the
right password and hence securing the system.
Based on the discussion from the above report, it could be concluded that the aspect of
security within the use of information systems is a major matter of concern. Cyber threats is a
major matter of concern in the recent times. There are various forms of cyber-attacks, which

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majorly impacts the systems and thus poses a major threat to the assets of individuals and various
organizations. In order to protect and secure the information systems from the clutches of cyber
threats, it would be highly essential to add a layer of security within the use of information
systems as they majorly prone to various form of attacks. Various forms of encryption
techniques, passwords and anti-virus software are useful for securing the high-end systems,
which majorly store vital information. Organizations are also taking security measures to prevent
from this type of attacks. However, home users cannot effort the high investment to secure their
system. But they can take some security measure from their end as well. They needs to be secure
that the website they are visiting are secure and does not redirect to other unsecure website.
While installing new software they need check the validation of the software authentication as
well. Windows user can enable their windows defender in order to keep their system away from
malicious applications. This would enhance the use of those form of systems and would also help
in maintaining a healthy form of relationship among organizations and customers.

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