Cybersecurity and Ethical-hacking

Cybersecurity is a subject that has vast areas in it. It is not possible to learn it from one hour or two or three articles. But in this article, we get an approach to start learning cybersecurity. This article is based on the lecture that has been conducted by Dr. Harsha and organized by the Software Engineering Teaching Unit (SETU) of the University of Kelaniya.

Present cybersecurity has a high demand in most industries because sensitive information is sharing worldwide. The need for cybersecurity is safeguarding this valuable information.

First, we look onto a vital model designed to guide policies for information security within an organization. That is CIA Triad for Security Goals.

CIA means,

• Confidentiality: Prevents unauthorized disclosure of systems and information.
• Integrity — Prevents unauthorized modifications of systems and information
• Availability — Prevents disruption of service and productivity

These are the three most crucial components of information security, and we can apply different controls to achieve these goals.

Then what are security assets?

Security assets are anything that supports information-related activities like computer files, processes, data, system resources, databases, programs, etc. These can relate to self/ family, organization, service, or a most confidential application, cannot afford to lose, irreplaceable, and impact one’s reputation. These security assets should be protected from unauthorized access, use, and disclosure. Below you can see some examples for security assets.

• Photos
• Credit card details, bank account details
• Account information, password information
• Financial records
• Secret files

It is essential to maintain access control for unauthorized persons to protect security assets. Access control means a process of identifying a subject and determining their level of access to an object.

• Subject — active entities (user, program, process)
• Object — passive entities (file, program, location)

There are also access control types,

• Physical — prevent unauthorized physical access
• Logical — prevent unauthorized electronic access
• Administrative — access control policies, procedures, and guidelines

Most modern access control systems combine all the above three types and prevent unauthorized electronic access to objects.

Four access control services enforce access control policy over objects. They are,

Identification — identify who you are

Authentication — a process of proving one’s identity to someone else

Authorization — determine subject’s access permissions within a system

Accountability — ensure users are accountable for their actions

Let’s look at these four control services that need to complete access management.

Identification

In computer security, identification describes as a method where you claim who you are. A person’s email address is a form of identification, and people share it with others to receive emails. Therefore, we can say identification is a public form of information. Username is also an identification that simple way of claiming a person’s identity.

Authentication

Authentication happens between humans and computers.

• Human interactions — recognize each others’ face and voices (biometric information)
• The digital world — there can be humans, computers, or programs that need to identify each other (mutual authentication) (passwords)

Passwords are critical in the authentication process. Password hacking happens most of the time in cybersecurity issues.

Brute force attacks

“A brute force attack consists of an attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing a combination correctly. The attacker systematically checks all possible passwords and passphrases until the correct one is found.”

-Wikipedia-

Hackers try every possible character combinations to find out the correct password. A dictionary attack is a brute-force technique where attackers run through everyday words and phrases, such as those from a dictionary, to guess passwords. A rainbow table is another brute-force technique used to gain authentication by cracking the passwords through hash values. Also, keylogging is a type of monitoring software designed to record keystrokes made by a user. These keystroke loggers record the information you type into a website or application and send it back to toa third party.

We can use password security best practices to keep passwords safe.

NIST[2] guidelines on password security

Good password — Memorable to the user, difficult to crack

Skip complexity rules and focus on password length

No dictionary words, permutations of your username

Use a password manager

Different passwords for each account

Well-encrypted password vault

Stores random, strong passwords for the rest of your accounts

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

A combination of any two authentication modes

Smart cards (ex:- memory cards, microprocessor cards)

Biometrics information (ex:- fingerprints, voice input, keyboard dynamics)

Authorization

In authorization, it checks what data/ resources can access and how to grant the right level of approval. Various models use to check authorization, and they are

• Discretionary access control (DAC)
• Mandatory access control (MAC)
• Role-based access control (RBAC)
• Rules-based access control (RB-RBAC)

Accountability

The accounting process starts after the user has been authenticated. The authentication records the log of actions users took while accessing resources (by whom, the time, and the commands issued). If the subject is uniquely identified and the subject’s actions are recorded, we can ensure accountability. Auditing capabilities ensure users are accountable for their actions, verify that the security policies are enforced, and be used as investigation tools.

Intruder behavior is an action that penetrates the system’s access controls to gain unauthorized access to a target system. Profit, protest, information gathering are some reasons for motivating intruder behaviors.

Ethical hacking also a hot topic related to cybersecurity. Ethical hacking is an action breaking into computers and devices to test any organization’s defenses. Ethical hackers have the legal facility to break into computers without the threat of being arrested.

Ethical hackers aim to investigate weak points of systems and networks that malicious hackers can destroy. Many companies hire ethical hackers to improve the security patches of their systems and networks. Ethical hackers check injection attacks, changes in security settings, exposure of sensitive data, a breach in authentication protocols, etc.

These two topics are very vast areas, and now we come to the end of this article. Ethical hacking and cybersecurity are essential areas for any industry in the near future.

Thank you for reading my article. :-)