Types of Threats

• They start with a picture from a report in 1970
  • Here is the document
  • The first 15 or so pages of classification are amusing.
  • 
  • This details the vulnerabilities of a system 50+ Years ago.
    • He is concerned about "radiation" or information escaping via electronic signals.
    • Look at Snooping Keystrokes with mm-level Audio Ranging on a Single Phone
    • Or When CSI Meets Public WiFi: Inferring Your Mobile Phone Password via WiFi Signals
  • Or humans who interact with the system.
    • Edward Snowden "is an American former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and subcontractor." (Wikipedia)
    • Chelsea Manning "is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents." (again Wikipedia)
• Human threats can be
  • Benign:
    • Accidental spilling a drink on a keyboard
    • Unintentionally deleting a file.
  • Malicious
    • Intentionally causing harm.
    • This is called an attack
• A random attack is where the attacker just wants to cause harm somewhere.
• A directed attack is the opposite, there is a specific goal for the attack.
  • This can be a person like our ex president
  • A specific piece of software (a browser) Chrome browser vulnerability"
  • Hardware meltdown
  • Or even an OS.
• It is often difficult to tell which is occurring until well into, or even after the attack.
• You can't know all of the treats
  • There are too many
  • People come up with new ones.
  • Development (hardware, software, policies, people) constantly introduce new vulnerabilities.
• But they list two sites of interest
  • Known Vulnerabilities
  • Common Vulnerability Scoring System
• Types of attackers
  • Someone playing
    • Little or no skill
    • Script Kitty
    • Breaks systems for the excitement
    • But doesn't know what they have.
  • The lone hacker
    • Breaks systems for the challenge.
    • Generally knowledgeable
    • Perhaps doesn't even do anything.
    • Or could be quite malicious
  • An angry/hurt individual
    • ex-employee breaks the system for revenge
  • APT
  • Government Agencies
    • stuxnet
  • Hacktivist
    • People who break in to protest.
  • Organized Crime
    • Up to and including "hacker for hire"
  • Terrorists
    • This has become evident
    • Elements
      • Computers are the target of an attack.
      • Computers are a tool of attack
      • Computers are used to organize attacks (communications, logistics, ...)
      • Computers as an enhancer of attack (recruitment, propaganda)
• APT - Advanced Persistent Threat
  • Attacks coming from organized, well financed, patient assailant's.
  • Think Government sponsored attackers.
• APT
  • Long term focused attacks.
  • Detailed research on targets (people and systems)
  • Including spear phishing
  • Silent, skilled, difficult to catch.
  • Current News
• There are good stories in the book, read it.