Security Breaches and Measures to Prevent Them

Running Head: SECURITY
SECURITY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Part A.....................................................................................................................................2
1..........................................................................................................................................3
2..........................................................................................................................................5
Part B......................................................................................................................................6
1..........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
A security breach can be described as an incident where unauthorized source can get
access of their desired data, services, applications and many more. Security breaches occur
when an application or an individual tries to enter a confidential IT perimeter illegitimately
(Laube and Böhme, 2016). Security breach is the initial stage of security attacks. Sometimes
a security breach can be less risky but sometimes it might result to be most dangerous. The
details of this topic are discussed further in this report. Asynchronous I/O is a type of input or
output processing that lets other processing to go on before the transmission gets over.
Operations of input and output can be slow in comparison to the processing of the data
(Chinner and Gigante, 2014). Asynchronous I/O activity is a problem with many memory
protection schemes, including base/bounds and paging. These problems are mentioned in the
discussion part of this report. It further discusses regarding the network outage that had been
faced by Play Station in 2011. It gives recommendation that could have been implemented by
Sony in order to prevent the attack.
Discussion
Part A
1. Various deadliest security breaches include WannaCry, Petya, Locky, Cerber,
SamSam and many more. The security breach chosen for this report is WannaCry. WannaCry
is a specific ransom ware worm that has the ability to spread itself through a wide range of
computer network (Scaife, Traynor and Butler, 2017). This ransom ware took place in May
2017. It infects a computer and encrypts files in the hardware of the PC. This makes
impossible for the owner of the data to get access to it. The attacker demands some amount of

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ransom in order to decrypt the data. The attack was highlighted because it struck numerous
systems of high profile. This included the National Health Service of Britain.
The WannaCry ransom ware includes many components. It appears in the computer
as a dropper. Dropper is a program which is self-contained that extracts the components of
other application within itself. These components are a copy of Tor, files that contain
encryption keys, an application that encrypts as well as decrypts information. The program
code was comparatively easy to analyze (Mohurle and Patil, 2017). After being launched
WannaCry accesses hard-coded URL. If it is unable to access it, it searches files and tries to
encrypt them in a specific format. It can hack Microsoft office files as well as MKVs and
MP3s and leaves them inaccessible to the owner. After that, it displays a notice where it
demands a ransom amount in bit coin in order to decrypt files.
WannaCry had the ability to spread itself across huge networks. This is done by
exploiting a known bug in the operating system of Microsoft Windows. According to various
reports, the attack took place on Friday (Ehrenfeld, 2017). This forced the hospitals in Britain
to turn away the patients. It had also stuck various companies in Spain such as Portugal
Telecom, Telefonia and FedEx. WannaCry attacked around 40 NHS (National Health
Service) of England. Hackers had sent mails containing malicious attachment to the victims.
They tricked the victims in opening the mails. They were tricked because the mails appeared
to contain job offers, invoice, security warnings and other files. WannaCry locks files in the
computers and encrypts them in such a way that the owner or the user is not allowed access to
the files. When WannaCry infects an operating system and the user tries to get access to the
data infected a pop-up window is appeared. This pop-up provides an explanation of the
happenings to the computer, how they can be recovered (Brewer, 2016). It also gives
instructions on the ways to pay the ransom amount in bit coin. The pop-up also features a
countdown clock, which shows the amount of time left for the payment. If the demanded