Introduction to Security Dr. John P. Abraham Professor UTPA

Terminology Risk – The likelihood of an asset being stolen. Security – Measures to Prevent theft Vulnerability – Weakness in the security that allows a threat agent to exploit that weakness to get to the asset. Identity theft and cyberterrorism are growing concerns

Attackers – Hackers – Computer savvy persons innocently or purposely, with or without malicious intent gaining access to other peoples computers. – Script kiddies – intention is to create damage. Use already available scripts. – Spies – Someone who is paid to steal information. – Employees – Cybercriminals - organized group, mostly in eastern european countries.

Steps of attacks – Probe for information Type of hardware, software, version, user id, ping, ports scanning – Penetrate defenses – eg guessing passwords – Modify security settings – allowing re-entrance (privilege escalation tools) – Paralyze network and devices – modifying, deleting, copying files, crashing computer, etc.

Defense against attacks Layers of security Limiting access Diverse types of protection for each layer Obscurity (unavailability to the public) of details of a system.