Network Security: Cyber Threats, Damages, and Countermeasures Report

This report delves into the multifaceted realm of cyber security, providing a detailed overview of the threats, potential damages, and mitigation strategies associated with cyber attacks. It begins with an executive summary and a table of contents, setting the stage for an exploration of various cyber attack techniques, including botnets, hacking, malware, phishing, and ransomware, and their impact on data integrity and organizational networks. The report then outlines the potential damages stemming from cyber attacks, such as data breaches, financial losses, identity theft, and infrastructure damage, emphasizing the vulnerability of critical systems like system control, financial departments, and telecommunications. Challenges and issues, including the increasing sophistication of cybercriminals, the evolution of cybercrime tools, and the difficulties in predicting attacks, are discussed. The report concludes by presenting a range of mitigation and countermeasure strategies, such as firewalls, access control lists, antivirus software, cryptography, network vulnerability testing, and physical security measures, to safeguard against cyber threats. References to credible sources are provided to support the information.

Running head: NETWORK SECURITY
Cyber Security
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary:
Cyber security provides an integral security to the user’s personal data. The cyber
security protects any organization network’s data integrity. The main purpose of the cyber
security is to provide protection against any unwanted threats that possessed by the cyber
attackers. There are various techniques of cyber attack because of these cyber attacks many data
breach occurred in the recent times. There are also some techniques which are provided for the
cyber security. The threats of cyber attacks are emerging day by day and it needs to be
prevented.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary:........................................................................................................................1
Identification of threat and attacks:.................................................................................................3
Potential Damages:..........................................................................................................................4
Challenges/Issues:............................................................................................................................4
Mitigation and Countermeasure strategies:.....................................................................................5
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................6

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Identification of threat and attacks:
The emergence of internet provided the human being a lot of opportunity online. A the
internet in accessible more people are engaged with this and the data are stored n the internet.
This encourage some people to breach the data by doing cyber attacks this is known as cyber
crime to prevent the cyber crime an organization need to implement a proper cyber security to its
system [1]. There are many types of cyber attacks technique used by the cyber attackers like they
use botnets, distributed denial of service, hacking, malware attack, phising, pharming,
ransomware, spamming, spyware & adware, spoofing, Trojan, viruses and by worms [2]. The
botsnets are mainly undetected; it is a collection of robots that attacks a group of infected
computers. Hacking is a way of finding the weakness in the security setting and then do the
attack. Malwares are software that can harm a computer using viruses, worms and trojans.
Malwares can leak information and can also delete it. Pharming is a online fraud method a
duplicate website is made for collecting personal information then target the victims [3]. Cyber
criminals mostly use phising technique it is a trick which will ask the victims to validate or
confirm the data before the attack it is also known as spoofing. Ransomeware attack is one type
of attack which can prevent the victim from accessing their own machine and the attackers ask
for ransome amount to give back the access to the victim. Any unwanted message that is
received by a user is called spam; basically it is a large amount of messages which is send to the
many user at a time by targeting he audience. Spyware & adware are often used by the third
party to infect the victims’ computer [4]. Among the all cyber threats virus and the worms are the
most common.

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Potential Damages:
The list of potential damage due to the cyber attack is very high. In the internet huge
amount of data are stored due to the cyber attacks the data breach is happen which leaks the
personal data of the internet users. The attackers attack online and gather the banking credentials
of the victim and withdraw money from the bank without authenticity [5]. Many countries now
days sponsor the cyber attacks to take revenge from another country by breaching the security of
the countries. The cyber attacker theft the identity and use the identity for some illegal purpose.
Sometime the personal message or any document that is important may be alter or deleted by the
cyber attack. Cyber attacks can be target many victims at a time. Many infrastructures are
targeted by the cyber attack [6]. System control, resource energy, transport, communication can
be damaged by the cyber attack. The control system is monitoring the system of an organization.
For this many devices are connected with each other. The financial department is also can be hit
hard by the cyber attacks. Cyber attacks to the financial institution are generally made by phising
the victims. The attackers used key logging to hack the financial department. The key loggers
can use the bank account of an organization because they have stolen the information like the
credentials, user id and the password. The result of cyber attack in the telecommunication is very
straightforward. In the telecommunication the voice and the IP addresses are merged. To attack
the telecommunication Denial-of-service attacks can be used. The transportation mirrors the
telecommunication facilities [8]. The cyber terrorist can attack the rail road by altering the
switches and they can attack also in the aviation industry [7].
Challenges/Issues:
The world of internet is changing in the recent time. The internet is continuing to create
new dimensions in the social field and as well as in the business field. At the same time the

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amount of attackers are also increasing. This leaves the organizations unsure about the upcoming
threats. Proper prediction of the cyber attack is getting difficult day by day. The local
government needs to take a look at the cyber crime and set of rules need to be possessed. As a
result the risk and the complexity is also increased so the organizational resource needs to
respond towards them. The issue regarding the cyber security is it is getting very difficult to use
the internet properly. For the cyber criminals the crypto jacking is in the top priority [9]. The
powershell based attacks are increasing. Top major issue is that he underground of the
cybercriminals is evolving and growing continuously. The tools for the cyber crimes are very
less so that is encouraging the cyber criminals to grow in large number. The cybercriminals are
gaining lots of money by doing the cyber attacks only the ransomware is alone gained one billion
dollar in the last year [10]. The top cyber criminals are hard to get so it is getting very difficult
for the cyber security to prevent them from doing cyber crime. The issues with the cyber security
are increasing and the challenge to mitigate those affect is getting tougher day by day.
Mitigation and Countermeasure strategies:
The cybercrime is rapidly increasing with the emergence of information and
communication technology. In the recent time the cybercrimes are crossing the national
boundaries easily and it is becoming a global concern. Due to the all crime that is happening
cyber security must be maintained by any organization. Right now there are so many counter
measures that can prevent the cyber criminals from doing the cyber attacks. For protecting the
network base attack firewall can be used it is the first line of defence for the network. Access
control list can be used for determining the authenticating the network traffic and network
services which need to be passed in the network [11]. Antivirus can be use to prevent the
unauthorised cyber attack by preventing any malicious code. Most of the viruses and the worm

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maintain similar characteristics and that is enable the signature based detection. The antivirus
that is used by the organization must be new and updated as per the new update. To prevent the
data breach cryptography can be used. The data must be encrypted so the data cannot be read by
the unauthorized user [12]. If the data is encrypted into cipher text then the data will became
more secure than before. The network vulnerability test can be performed by the system
engineers or by the programmes that is generated automatically to test on targeted devices. The
organization must use some network monitoring tool that can be used to monitor suspicious
activities on the network on both of the large scale and small scale network. To prevent the cyber
criminals from getting the physical access of the machine many prevention techniques can be
implied such as lock, biometric device, access key or cards. To put a strong password for the
whole computer system and the computer bios is a good measurement against the cyber attack.
In various country there are certain rule that is possessed by the government to prevent the
cybercrime.
Conclusion:
To conclude the report it can be said that with the emergence of information and
communication technology the amount of cyber crime is also increasing. The group of cyber
crimes are continuing to do cyber attacks by using various techniques. In the recent time the
boundary of the cyber attack is crossed their boundaries now it is become a global issue. Various
modes of cyber attacks are used by the cyber criminals as the cyber crime tools are low on cost.
The common techniques use by the cyber criminals are malware attack, phishing, spamming,
spoofing, trojan inject, worms, viruses and by spyware & adware. Due to the cyber attacks huge
data breach happens and these need to prevent. To prevent the data breach some security
measurement also needs to be taken by the organization using the network. To prevent the

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network from any malicious attack firewall can be used, to prevent the data from the
unauthorised user encryption can be done and finally for protecting the machine from the any
kind of viruses and worms antivirus can be used. The challenges and the issue with the cyber
crime is increasing rapidly the criminals are doing the attacks for their own purpose or the attack
is sponsored by a group. The damage can be high in the case of cyber attacks. The cyber attack is
done in various fields like business to finance all can get affected. Many countries sponsors the
cybercriminals for cyber attack to another country and steal confidential data from the country.
To summarise it can be said that there is cyber criminals who are responsible for the cyber
attacks but there is also cyber security to prevent those cyber attack.

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[11] Sood, A.K. and Enbody, R.J., 2013. Targeted cyberattacks: a superset of advanced
persistent threats. IEEE security & privacy, 11(1), pp.54-61.
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