Unit 1

Attacks on Computers and Computer Security

concepts and Techniques: Introduction, The need for
security, Security approaches, Principles of security,
Types of Security attacks, Security services, Security
Mechanisms, A model for Network Security.

Cryptography: Introduction, plain text and cipher

text, substitution techniques, transposition
techniques, encryption and decryption, symmetric and
asymmetric key cryptography, Steganography, key
range and key size, possible types of attacks
How safe is your information?
•Recent events show that commercial, personal and
sensitive information is very hard to keep secure

•As breaches in information security continue to make

headline news, it is becoming increasingly clear that
technological solutions are not the only answer.

•Research conducted in 2007 suggests that at least 80%

of data leakages are caused by staff rather than IT
systems (source: Financial Times/Forrester Research,
Nov-07).

•It is clear therefore that Information Security should be

viewed as a management function rather than one of IT
alone.
Introduction
Information:- Computers, Networks, Internet,
Mobile.
Security:-trying to understand how to
protect.
The various dangers & pitfalls when we use
technology.
The consequences of not setting up the right
 Security Policies
 Security Framework
 Security Technology
Why is Security Required?
Business & different types of transactions are

being conducted to a large extent over

Internet.
Inadequate or improper security mechanism

can bring whole business down or play havoc

with people’s lives!
Since Electronic Documents & Messages are

now becoming equivalent to proper

documents in terms of their legal validity &
Why Study Information Security
Businesses collect mass amounts of data about

their customers, employees, and competitors.

Most of this data is stored on computers and

transmitted across networks.

If this information should fall into the hands of a

competitor, the result could be loss of business,

lawsuits and bankruptcy.
Protecting corporate data is no longer an option, it

is a requirement.
Information Security
Protecting information and information
systems from unauthorized access, use,
disclosure, disruption, modification, or
destruction.

Background
Throughout history, confidentiality of
information has always played a key role
in military conflict.
In Past No or little security.
The Need for Security(Current Scenario)
Now a days Importance of data was truly
realized.
 Financial & Personal data
Therefore various areas in security began to
gain prominence.
Typical Examples of Basic Security
Mechanism:
 Authenticate a User->id, pw
 Encode->DB->Not Visible to user who do not
have the right permission.
Organization employed their own mechanism.
The Need for Security In Modern Life
Internet took the world by storm.
Technology Improved
Communication Infrastructure became
extremely mature.
Newer & newer applications begins to
developed for various user demands & need.
Soon peoples realized that basic security
measures were not quite enough.
Information traveling from a client to a
server over the internet.
Some real time attacks
Russian Attacker Maxim actually manage to
intruder into a merchant Internet site & obtained
300,000 credit card numbers from its DB.
He then attempted extortion by demanding
protection money($100,000) from the merchant.
The merchant refused to oblige.
Following this, the attacker published about
25,000 of the credit card numbers on the
internet!
Some banks reissued all the credit cards at a
cost of $20 per card & others forewarned
their customers about unusual entries in
their statements.
Consequences of Attack
Great Losses-both in terms of finance &
goodwill.
Cost of attack $20*300000=$6M
Another Example:-
1999 Swedish hacker broke into Microsoft’s
Hotmail Website & created a mirror site.
This allowed anyone to enter any Hotmail
user’s email id & read their emails.
1999 survey about the losses that occur due
to successful attacks on security. $256,296/
$759,380 per incident
Next year this figured to $972,857
Modern Nature Of Attack …
1. Automating Attacks:
Modern Nature Of Attack …
2. Privacy Concern:
Every Company is collecting & processing lots
of information about us. Without we realizing
when & how it is going to be used.
3. Distance does not matter:- Attack Can be
launched from the distance.
E.g:- In 1995, a Russian hacker broke into
Citibank’s computer remotely, stealing $12M.
Although the attacker was traced, it was very
difficult to get extradited him for the court
case.
Security Approaches
Trusted Systems:
A computer system that can be trusted to a
specified extent to enforce a specified policy
Reference monitor
 Tamper proof
 Always invoked
 Small enough, tested independently
 Bell-LaPadula Model
Security Approaches …
Security Models:
No security
Security through Obscurity
Host Security
Network Security
Security Approaches …
Security-Management Practices:
Security policy in place
 Four key aspects:
 Affordability – cost and effort

 Function – mechanism

 Cultural issues – complements people’s

expectations, working style and beliefs

 Legality: legal requirements
Principles Of Security/ Security Services
4 chief principles of security.
1. Confidentiality:- Is msg seen by someone
else?
2. Authentication:- Do u trust the sender of
msg?
3. Integrity:- Is the meg changed during
transmit?
4. Non-repudiation:- Can sender refute the msg?
 Above principles are related to a particular
message.
 2 more linked to overall system as a whole.
5. Access Control:- Who can Access what? [ACL]
6. Availability:- Information should be available
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is the process of preventing disclosure
of information to unauthorized individuals or systems.
Confidentiality is necessary, but not sufficient to
maintain privacy
Interception Causes Loss of Message Confidentiality
Authentication
Establish proof of identities
Ensures the origin of the message
Fabrication is possible in absence of proper authentication
Integrity
Integrity means that data cannot be
modified/change without Authorization
Modification Causes Loss of Message
integrity
Non-Repudiation
It is a complex term used to describe the lack of
deniability of ownership of a message, piece of data, or
Transaction.
It does not allow the sender of a message to refute the
claim of not sending that message
Access Control
Role Management->User Side->Which user
can do what.
Rule Management->Resource Side->Which
resources are accessible and under what
circumstances.
Access Control List is subset of Access
Control Matrix.
Availability
For any information/system to serve its
purpose, the information must be
accessible & usable when it is needed.
Interruption puts the availability of
resources in danger.
OSI Standard for security Model
(OSI Security Model 7498-2)
Ethical and Legal Issues
Types of Attacks:
Attacks: A General View
Attacks – A Technical View
Types of Attack
Attacks: A Technical View
1. Theoretical Concepts behind this attack.
 Inception:- Copying of data & program &
listening to N/W Traffic.
 Fabrication:-Attacker may add fake records
to a database. Creation of illegal objects on
the computer system.
 Modification:-Attacker modifies Value of DB
 Interruption:- Resources became
unavailable, lost or unusable. Causing
problems to a H/W device, erasing program,
Data or OS components.
Further Grouped in to types:
Passive Attack
Attacker eavesdropping or monitoring of data
transmission.
Tries too learn something out of it & make use of
it.
Aims to obtain information that is in transmit.
No Modification
Detection harder.
1. For plain text Message
Solution prevention :- encryption
2. For Encoded Message

Similarity -> Pattern -> Clue

Classification of Passive Attack
Active Attack
Modification
Creation of False Msg
Masquerade :- Trying to pose as another

entity
No prevention
Solution Detection & Recovery
Classification of Active Attack
Practical Side Of Attack
Program That Attacks
Virus
Worms
Trojan Horse
Applets & ActiveX Controls
Cookies
Java Script VB Script Jscript
Etc.
 Program That Attacks to cause some damage
or to create confusion.
Virus
Practical Side Of Attack
A piece of program code that attaches itself
to another legitimate program & causes
damage to the computer system or to the
N/W.

virus
Properties Of Virus
 Self-propagates
 Action /Event Driven
Solution->Good backup, recovery Procedure.
During its life time Virus goes through four
phases:-
1. Dormant
2. Propagation
3. Triggering
4. Execution
virus
Virus can be classified into following
categories:-
1. Parasitic->.EXE
2. Memory-Resident Virus->.EXE
3. Boot Sector->MBR->Disk->OS
4. Stealth->Intelligence Built in->prevent
detection AV
5. Polymorphic->changing its signature->difficult
detection
6. Metamorphic->5+rewriting itself every time-
>more hard
7. Macro virus->Application S/W->like MS office
Docs.
Worm
Trojan Horse
Dealing with Viruses
Specific Attacks
Sniffing and Spoofing
Packet Sniffing
Packet Spoofing
Phishing
Pharming (DNS Spoofing or DNS poisoning)
DNS Sec (Secure DNS)
Security Mechanism
feature designed to detect, prevent, or
recover from a security attack
no single mechanism that will support all
services required
however one particular element underlies
many of the security mechanisms in use:
cryptographic techniques
hence our focus on this topic
Security Mechanisms (X.800)
specific security mechanisms:
encipherment, digital signatures, access
controls, data integrity, authentication
exchange, traffic padding, routing control,
notarization
pervasive security mechanisms:
trusted functionality, security labels, event
detection, security audit trails, security
recovery
Model for Network Security
Model for Network Security
 using this model requires us to:
1. design a suitable algorithm for the security
transformation
2. generate the secret information (keys) used
by the algorithm
3. develop methods to distribute and share the
secret information
4. specify a protocol enabling the principals to
use the transformation and secret
information for a security service
Model for Network Access Security
Model for Network Access Security
 using this model requires us to:
1. select appropriate gatekeeper functions to
identify users
2. implement security controls to ensure only
authorised users access designated
information or resources
 trusted computer systems may be useful to
help implement this model
Some Basic Terminology
plaintext - original message
ciphertext - coded message
cipher - algorithm for transforming plaintext to
ciphertext
key - info used in cipher known only to sender/receiver
encipher (encrypt) - converting plaintext to ciphertext
decipher (decrypt) - recovering ciphertext from
plaintext
cryptography - study of encryption principles/methods
cryptanalysis (codebreaking) - study of principles/
methods of deciphering ciphertext without knowing key
cryptology - field of both cryptography and cryptanalysis
Cryptography
can characterize cryptographic system by:
type of encryption operations used
 substitution
 transposition
 product

number of keys used

 single-key or private
 two-key or public

way in which plaintext is processed

 block
 stream
Classical Substitution Ciphers
where letters of plaintext are replaced by
other letters or by numbers or symbols
or if plaintext is viewed as a sequence of bits,
then substitution involves replacing plaintext
bit patterns with ciphertext bit patterns
Caesar Cipher
earliest known substitution cipher
by Julius Caesar
first attested use in military affairs
replaces each letter by 3rd letter on
example:
meet me after the toga party
PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB
Caesar Cipher
can define transformation as:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C
mathematically give each letter a number
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

then have Caesar cipher as:

c = E(k, p) = (p + k) mod (26)
p = D(k, c) = (c – k) mod (26)
Cryptanalysis of Caesar Cipher
 only have 26 possible ciphers
A maps to A,B,..Z
 could simply try each in turn
 a brute force search
 given ciphertext, just try all shifts of letters
 do need to recognize when have plaintext
 eg. break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"
Mono-alphabetic Cipher
rather than just shifting the alphabet
could shuffle (jumble) the letters
arbitrarily
each plaintext letter maps to a different
random ciphertext letter
hence key is 26 letters long

Plain: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Cipher: DKVQFIBJWPESCXHTMYAUOLRGZN

Plaintext: ifwewishtoreplaceletters
Ciphertext: WIRFRWAJUHYFTSDVFSFUUFYA
Monoalphabetic Cipher Security
now have a total of 26! = 4 x 10 26 keys
with so many keys, might think is secure
but would be !!!WRONG!!!
problem is language characteristics
Language Redundancy and Cryptanalysis
human languages are redundant
eg "th lrd s m shphrd shll nt wnt"
letters are not equally commonly used
in English E is by far the most common
letter
followed by T,R,N,I,O,A,S
other letters like Z,J,K,Q,X are fairly rare
have tables of single, double & triple letter
frequencies for various languages
English Letter Frequencies
Use in Cryptanalysis
key concept - monoalphabetic substitution
ciphers do not change relative letter
frequencies
discovered by Arabian scientists in 9th
century
calculate letter frequencies for ciphertext
compare counts/plots against known
values
if caesar cipher look for common
peaks/troughs
peaks at: A-E-I triple, NO pair, RST triple
troughs at: JK, X-Z
Homophonic Substitution cipher
Homophonic substitution cipher also involves
substitution of one plain-text character with a
cipher-text character at a time, however the
cipher-text character can be any one of the
chosen set.
Polygram Substitution Cipher
Polygram substitution cipher technique
replaces one block of plain text with another
block of cipher text—it does not work on a
character-by-character basis.
Playfair Cipher
 not even the large number of keys in a
monoalphabetic cipher provides security
 one approach to improving security was to
encrypt multiple letters
 the Playfair Cipher is an example
 invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1854, but
named after his friend Baron Playfair
Playfair Key Matrix
 a 5X5 matrix of letters based on a keyword
 fill in letters of keyword (sans duplicates)
 fill rest of matrix with other letters
 eg. using the keyword MONARCHY

M O N A R
C H Y B D
E F G I/J K
L P Q S T
U V W X Z
Encrypting and Decrypting
 plaintext is encrypted two letters at a time
1. if a pair is a repeated letter, insert filler like 'X’
2. if both letters fall in the same row, replace
each with letter to right (wrapping back to
start from end)
3. if both letters fall in the same column, replace
each with the letter below it (wrapping to top
from bottom)
4. otherwise each letter is replaced by the letter
in the same row and in the column of the other
letter of the pair
Security of Playfair Cipher
security much improved over
monoalphabetic
since have 26 x 26 = 676 digrams
would need a 676 entry frequency table to
analyse (verses 26 for a monoalphabetic)
and correspondingly more ciphertext
was widely used for many years
eg. by US & British military in WW1
it can be broken, given a few hundred
letters
since still has much of plaintext structure
Hill Cipher
Lester Hill invented this in 1929.
The Hill cipher has its roots in the matrix
theory of mathematics.
how to compute the inverse of a matrix
Polyalphabetic Ciphers
polyalphabetic substitution ciphers
improve security using multiple cipher
alphabets
make cryptanalysis harder with more alphabets
to guess and flatter frequency distribution
use a key to select which alphabet is used for
each letter of the message
use each alphabet in turn
repeat from start after end of key is reached
Vigenére cipher and the Beaufort cipher
Vigenère Cipher
simplest polyalphabetic substitution cipher
effectively multiple caesar ciphers
key is multiple letters long K = k1 k2 ... kd
ith letter specifies ith alphabet to use
use each alphabet in turn
repeat from start after d letters in message
decryption simply works in reverse
Example of Vigenère Cipher
write the plaintext out
write the keyword repeated above it
use each key letter as a caesar cipher key
encrypt the corresponding plaintext letter
eg using keyword deceptive
key: deceptivedeceptivedeceptive
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHCQYGLMGJ
Security of Vigenère Ciphers
have multiple ciphertext letters for each
plaintext letter
hence letter frequencies are obscured
but not totally lost
start with letter frequencies
see if look monoalphabetic or not
if not, then need to determine number of
alphabets, since then can attach each
Autokey Cipher
ideally want a key as long as the message
Vigenère proposed the autokey cipher
with keyword is prefixed to message as
key
knowing keyword can recover the first
few letters
use these in turn on the rest of the
message
but still have frequency characteristics to
attack
eg. given key deceptive
key: deceptivewearediscoveredsav
Vernam Cipher
 ultimate defense is to use a key as long as the
plaintext
 with no statistical relationship to it
 invented by AT&T engineer Gilbert Vernam in
1918
 originally proposed using a very long but
eventually repeating key
One-Time Pad
if a truly random key as long as the
message is used, the cipher will be secure
called a One-Time pad
is unbreakable since ciphertext bears no
statistical relationship to the plaintext
since for any plaintext & any ciphertext
there exists a key mapping one to other
can only use the key once though
problems in generation & safe distribution
of key
Transposition Ciphers
 now consider classical transposition or
permutation ciphers
 these hide the message by rearranging the
letter order
 without altering the actual letters used
 can recognise these since have the same
frequency distribution as the original text
Rail Fence cipher
write message letters out diagonally over
a number of rows
then read off cipher row by row
eg. write message out as:
m e m a t r h t g p r y
e t e f e t e o a a t
giving ciphertext
MEMATRHTGPRYETEFETEOAAT
Row Transposition Ciphers
 is a more complex transposition
 write letters of message out in rows over a
specified number of columns
 then reorder the columns according to some
key before reading off the rows
Key: 4312567
Column Out 3 4 2 1 5 6 7
Plaintext: a t t a c k p
o s t p o n e
d u n t i l t
w o a m x y z
Ciphertext: TTNAAPTMTSUOAODWCOIXKNLYPETZ
Product Ciphers
ciphers using substitutions or
transpositions are not secure because of
language characteristics
hence consider using several ciphers in
succession to make harder, but:
two substitutions make a more complex
substitution
two transpositions make more complex
transposition
but a substitution followed by a transposition
makes a new much harder cipher
this is bridge from classical to modern
Symmetric Encryption
or conventional / private-key / single-key
sender and recipient share a common key
all classical encryption algorithms are
private-key
was only type prior to invention of public-key
in 1970’s
and by far most widely used
Symmetric Cipher Model
Requirements
two requirements for secure use of
symmetric encryption:
a strong encryption algorithm
a secret key known only to sender / receiver
mathematically have:
Y = E(K, X)
X = D(K, Y)
assume encryption algorithm is known
implies a secure channel to distribute key
Steganography
an alternative to encryption
hides existence of message
using only a subset of letters/words in a longer
message marked in some way
using invisible ink
hiding in LSB in graphic image or sound file
has drawbacks
high overhead to hide relatively few info bits
advantage is can obscure encryption use
Cryptanalysis
objective to recover key not just message
general approaches:
cryptanalytic attack
brute-force attack
if either succeed all key use compromised
Cryptanalytic Attacks
 ciphertext only
only know algorithm & ciphertext, is statistical,
know or can identify plaintext
 known plaintext
know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext
 chosen plaintext
select plaintext and obtain ciphertext
 chosen ciphertext
select ciphertext and obtain plaintext
 chosen text
select plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt
More Definitions
 unconditional security
no matter how much computer power or time
is available, the cipher cannot be broken since
the ciphertext provides insufficient information
to uniquely determine the corresponding
plaintext
 computational security
given limited computing resources (eg time
needed for calculations is greater than age of
universe), the cipher cannot be broken
Brute Force Search
always possible to simply try every key
most basic attack, proportional to key size
assume either know / recognise plaintext

Key Size (bits) Number of Alternative Time required at 1 Time required at 106
Keys decryption/µs decryptions/µs
32 232 = 4.3  109 231 µs = 35.8 minutes 2.15 milliseconds
56 256 = 7.2  1016 255 µs = 1142 years 10.01 hours
128 2128 = 3.4  1038 2127 µs = 5.4  1024 years 5.4  1018 years

168 2168 = 3.7  1050 2167 µs = 5.9  1036 years 5.9  1030 years

26 characters 26! = 4  1026 2  1026 µs = 6.4  1012 years 6.4  106 years
(permutation)