VULNERABILITIES AND THREATS
OF NETWORK SECURITY
CONTENTS
•Definitions
•Vulnerabilities
•Types of Vulnerabilities
•Types of Threats
DEFINITIONS
• THREAT:A threat is anything that can disrupt the
operation, functioning, integrity, or availability of a
network or system. This can take any form and can be
malevolent, accidental, or simply an act of nature.
• VULNERABILITY:A vulnerability is an inherent
weakness in the design, configuration,
implementation, or management of a network or
system that renders it susceptible to a threat.
• ATTACK: An attack is a specific technique used to
exploit a vulnerability.
• For example, a threat could be a denial of service. A
vulnerability is in the design of the operating system,
and an attack could be a "ping of death.“
• There are two general categories of attacks, passive
and active.
• Passive attacks are very difficult to detect.
Example: packet sniffing
VULNERABILITIES
• A vulnerability is an inherent weakness in the design,
configuration, or implementation of a network or
system that renders it susceptible to a threat.
• Most vulnerabilities can usually be traced back to one
of three sources:
• Poor design: Hardware and software systems that
contain design flaws that can be exploited.
example: the "sendmail" flaws in early versions of
Unix
Contd…..
• Poor implementation: Systems that are incorrectly
configured, and therefore vulnerable to attack.
• This type of vulnerability usually results from
inexperience, insufficient training.
Example: unristricted access privileges on critical
executable files.
• Poor Maintenance: security measures need to be
documented and monitored.
• Daily backup of a system needs to be verified.
Types of Vulnerabilities
• Physical Vulnerabilities: Central hosts and servers
should be kept in secure rooms that can only be
entered by authorized personal.
• Routers and communications equipment should also
kept in secure locations with restricted access.
• Hardware and Software Vulnerabilities: Design flaws
in hardware or software can render systems
vulnerable to attack or affect the availability of
systems
Contd…..
• Media Vulnerabilities:
• Disks, tapes, and other media can be stolen, lost, or
damaged. Information can be copied and removed
from an organization's facilities without detection.
• Accordingly, companies need to ensure the safety of
all media that contains or stores vital information
assets.
Contd……
• Human Vulnerabilities:
• Human stupidity, carelessness, laziness, greed, and
anger represent the greatest threats to networks and
systems and will do more damage than the rest of the
others combined.
• Moreover, human vulnerabilities and the risks
associated with them are the most difficult to defend
against.
Types of Threats
• Virus: virus is a computer programme that attaches
itself to another legitimate program and causes
damages to the computer system or to the network.
• Worm: worm does not perform any destructive
actions and instead, only consumes system resources
to to bring it down.
• It replicates itself again and again.
Contd…
• Trojan horse: It is a hidden piece of code, like virus.
• It allows an attacker to obtain some confidential about
a computer or a network.
• Example: getting login user id and pwd.
• Packet sniffing: is a passive attack on an ongoing
conversation.
• An attacker need not hijack a conversation, but
instead, can simply observe packets as they pass by.
• Prevention can be by data encode or transmission link
encode.
Contd..
• Packet spoofing: In this technique, an attacker sends
packets with a false source address.
• When it happens, the receiver would inadvertently
send replies back to this forged address not to
attacker. his can lead to three possible cases
• The attacker can intercept the reply:
• The attacker need not see the reply:
• The attacker does not want the reply:
Contd…
• IP Address Spoofing:IP address spoofing takes
advantage of systems and networks that rely on the IP
address of the connecting system or device for
authentication.
• For example, packet-filtering routers are sometimes
used to protect an internal network from an external
untrusted network.
Contd…
• Trap doors: A trap door or back door is an
undocumented way of gaining access to a system that
is built into the system by its designer(s).
• It can also be a program that has been altered to
allow someone to gain privileged access to a system or
process.
• There have been numerous stories of vendors utilizing
trap doors in disputes with customers.
Contd…
• Logic Bombs: A logic bomb is a program or subsection
of a program designed with malevolent intent.
• It is referred to as a logic bomb, because the program
is triggered when certain logical conditions are met.
• This type of attack is almost always perpetrated by an
insider with privileged access to the network.
• The perpetrator could be a programmer or a vendor
that supplies software.
Contd…
• Denial of Service: Denial-of-service attacks are
designed to shut down or render inoperable a system
or network.
• The goal of the denial-of-service attack is not to gain
access or information but to make a network or
system unavailable for use by other users.
• It is called a denial-of-service attack, because the end
result is to deny legitimate users access to network
services.
Contd..
• Ping of Death:
• ping is a TCP/IP command that simply sends out an IP
packet to a specified IP address or host name to see if
there is a response from the address or host.
• It is often used to determine if a host is on the
network or alive.
• ICMP is part of the IP of TCP/IP and operates at the
Internet layer using the IP datagram to deliver
messages.
• Many operating systems were or are vulnerable to
larger-than-normal ICMP packets.
• As a result, specifying a large packet in a ping
command can cause an overflow in some system’s
internals that can result in system crashes.
