Principles Of Information Systems Security Case Study Sample

Computer security threat refers to anything that has the potential of causing serious harms to the system of the computer. It is a thing that may or may not possibly happen, but it poses the possibility of causing a severe damage. There are various kinds of threats that exist today. They continuously do evolve to find ways to harm or annoy a computer.
Some of the serious threats to the computer system are discussed. First, there are internet worms. The internet worms are programs that can affect another computer on the same network. It works differently from the virus. The virus works by attaching itself to another program for it to be harmful. It can also create an exact copy of itself. Worms do spread via network and consume bandwidth. This is because sometimes the internet connection sometimes becomes slow. They can have malicious effects such as causing a server to crash and others (Pfleeger & Pfleeger, 2012).
Another threat is the zombies. In a case where a virus or Trojan has infected a computer, it opens a ‘backdoor’. The backdoor enables hackers to use an infected computer for malicious purposes without the knowledge of the owner. Such an infected computer is called a zombie. Additionally, the hackers can use the target computer to access others and use it for their purpose (EC-Council, 2009).
There is also an email virus. It can distribute itself using email as an attachment. When the owner opens the attachment, it launches the virus, and the virus uses the target computer in sending the same email with the same attachment to other computers. The virus can also find files having email addresses on the destination computer to send the mail itself to the email addresses which it found in the computer (Pfleeger & Pfleeger, 2012).
Additionally, the rootkit is also a threat. It can hide in a computer by avoiding detection while running its utilities. It creates a backdoor on the computer targeted and hence allowing hackers to send spam or use the targeted computer for the performance of denial-of-service attacks on servers. It can only be detected by running the antivirus before the system boots the hard disk (EC-Council, 2009).
A browser hijacker is a threat that changes the browser’s home page or search pages in the browser. It sometimes disables the internet option on the computer to the default home page. It can also edit the registry so that it runs every time you restart the computer. There are other threats to the computer system such as mousetrapping, spam, phishing, adware and spyware (EC-Council, 2009).
Attackers are becoming intelligent by implementing various techniques that they use to attack computer systems. Such techniques have been heard of while others haven’t. These techniques are IP spoofing, man in the middle attack, server spoofing, source routing, password cracking, DNS poisoning among others. IP spoofing works in such a way that an attacker fakes their IP address. This makes the receiver think that it is sent from a certain location and in the real sense, it is not. Also, the attack may be directed to a particular computer in such a way that the sender is the same computer. This makes the operating system of the computer to crash (Pfleeger & Pfleeger, 2012).
Man in the middle attack may occur through session hijacking. The attacker may watch a session open on a particular network. Once the authentication is complete, they may attack the computer of the client to disable it. Through IP spoofing, they claim to be the client that was just authenticated and steal the session (EC-Council, 2009).
DNS poisoning is an attack in which DNS information is falsified. The attack may not be practically an assault. The attacker sends incorrect DNS information which causes traffic to be diverted. Such like an attack can occur on a website of an institution such as a bank and capture customer’s information such as login (EC-Council, 2009).
In conclusion, the information that has been given has provided and distinctly explained the various threats that occur. The risks should be avoided by all possible means and hence minimize harmful effects. Also, there has been a clear explanation of the techniques that the attackers use.

References

Pfleeger,C, P., Pfleeger., S, L. (2012). Analyzing Computer Security: A Threat/vulnerability/countermeasure Approach. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall Professional.
EC-Council. (2009). Ethical Hacking and Countermeasures: Threats and Defense Mechanisms. Boston: Cengage Learning.