Identifying Potential Malicious Attacks, Threats and Vulnerabilities

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Attacks are threats which use a diversity of tools, scripts and programs to start attacks against networks and network devices. The end points like servers and desktops are some of the typical devices under attack. Threats are the people who are eager, willing and equipped to take advantage of every safety weakness with continual search for fresh exploits and weakness. Vulnerability is the weakness that is inherent in every network and device which includes routers, servers, desktops, switches including security devices themselves (Wasserman 2014).

The potential attacks include illegal access, denial of service attack (DoS) and worms, viruses, and Trojan horses. The illegal access in this case is the capability of unauthorized intruder to have access to device(s) for which he/she does not possess an account or password. This involves running a hack, script or tool that exploit called vulnerability of application of system. Denial of service attack (DoS) is where an attacker disables or corrupts networks, systems or services with intention of denying services to the target users. DoS involve crashing or slowing down the system to the point of it becoming unusable. It is the most feared as the attacker does not require prior access to the target since away of access is what is required. It involves running a hack or script. Worms, Viruses, and Trojan Horses involves malicious software introduced in the host with an intention of destroying the system, corrupting the system, replicating itself or deny service or access to the networks services or systems. The malicious software also permits sensitive information to be copied to other systems (Wasserman 2014).

The security controls to consider during implementation in order to protect against the potential malicious attacks include access controls, use of encryption well configuration of network equipment like firewalls, servers, FTP severs and other equipment. Other security controls to consider are use of updated antivirus software against viruses, secured user accounts, strong passwords, use of logical access controls, having disaster recovery plan among others (Wasserman 2014).

Potential concerns for data loss and data theft that may exist in the network are the increased level of skill for attackers as technology also continues to advance. Second id data latency whereby data transfer in wireless network is not as contiguous and consistent as it is in the case of dedicated wired local area network. Next is the sophistication of both security and privacy issues which are extra distributed in such a way that the user section for such services is constantly growing. As the increase of on-demand application usage takes place, the potential of cyber attacks also increases. In addition, the encryption and decryption of data when moving around unreliable and public networks, congestion and packet loss is a problem (Bhadauria et al., 2011).

The potential impact of data latency concern is that attack can take place at any point of the network that may not be certain, making security management difficult since data transfer is not sequential and not consistent. The sophistication of security and privacy concerns have the impact of increasing chances of attacks to the network in a wider range due to its nature of extra distribution. The encryption and decryption of data when moving around unreliable networks also increase the chance of data loss and theft by attackers who may take advantage of such unreliable networks (Bhadauria et al., 2011).

The security controls to consider during implementation in order to protect against the above concerns for data loss and data theft include proper encryption and decryption of files that travels across the network. The design of the security systems should also be improved in order to reduce the complexity of security and privacy issues. The inconsistency and contiguous data transfer experienced in data latency issue can also be controlled by improvement in the design of wireless security systems.

The concepts of information systems security

The information security can be understood from the perspective of concepts such as data/information protection using passwords, data encryption and decryption, access controls logical controls, computer lock and many more. Others include network security which can be achieved through installation and configuration of firewalls, virtual private network (VPNs), routers, and servers including the use of network layers for different types of data/information communication.

Principles of risk management, common response techniques, and issues related to recovery of IT systems.Risk management is the whole process of recognizing, controlling, and alleviating information system associated risks. It includes risk assessment; cost-benefit analysis as well as the choice, implementation, test, and security evaluation of safeguards. This general system safety review takes into an account the effectiveness and efficiency, including effect on the mission and limitations due to policy, regulations and law. The disaster planning and recovery are some of the issues related to recovery of IT systems. The common response includes the use of commercial computer incident/emergency response teams (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012).

How malicious attacks, threats, and vulnerabilities impact an IT infrastructure.

The malicious attacks, threats and vulnerabilities in that they make the IT network infrastructure insecure, weak, or even damage the network completely to an extent that data/ information transmission and reception may not take place at all by making it dysfunctional. If communication is to take place, then the information transmitted and received can be lost, destroyed or corrupted along during transmission at some point of the network infrastructure.

Means attackers use to compromise systems and networks, and defenses used by organizations.

The attackers use the concept of attack simulation that makes the extensive use of conservative attack graph (CAG). The CAG permits the attacker to know accurately where to attack in order to get its complete goal of attack. In CAG is where the attacker has to gain the continuous knowledge and privileges gotten via prior attacks. The component of attack employs CAG to guide the attack where that attack path may include penetration from internet to the target system. The defense mechanism include use of site scanning, use of digital forensics including network address space randomization(NASR) and DYNAT to thwart hit list worm and to make worms easier to detect. The defense can also use the defense component which consists of the configuration manager, hosts active virtual machines (VMs) which can be assigned to any host for the purpose of playing security roles (Rui Zhuang et al., 2013).

References

Bhadauria, R., Chaki, R., Chaki, N., & Sanyal, S. (2011). A survey on security issues in cloud computing. arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.5388.

Wasserman, M. (2014). Network Working Group S. Hartman Internet-Draft Painless Security Intended status: Experimental D. Zhang Expires: July 28, 2014 Huawei.

Rui Zhuang, Su Zhang, Scott A. DeLoach, Xinming Ou, and Anoop Singhal.(2013). Simulation-based Approaches to Studying Effectiveness ofMoving-Target Network Defense. Kansas State University,fzrui,zhangs84,sdeloach,xoug@ksu.edu,National Institute of Standards and Technology, psinghal@nist.gov.

Zissis, D., & Lekkas, D. (2012). Addressing cloud computing security issues. Future Generation Computer Systems, 28(3), 583-592.