Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking

Let me first discuss the dictionary meaning of obfuscated then it would be easier to relate and get the meaning of obfuscated malware. Obsfucation: The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible. Obsfucated malware means when authors make it's detection difficult. It's underlying functionality is not affected but it's strings are rendered unreadable. Commonly adopted methods for obfuscation are: Packing: This involves compressing the executable file. On compression, the hash of the file changes compared to the original one and many strings become incomprehensible. So, for a person relying on these two factors for static analysis, the outcome may not be correct. Encryption: The code is encrypted to make it's analysis further, difficult. Encoding: It is quite similar to encryption, but it does not use keys. An example is Base64 encoding. Dead Code Insertion: This makes the code difficult to analyze but does not affect the working of the file.

CIA triad is an information security model which helps organizations to set certain rules, regulations, and policies to protect the organization from unauthorized access and data exfiltration. The principles which form the core of the CIA are: C stands for Confidentiality I  for Integrity A  for Availability Confidentiality : It aims to protect sensitive information from being accessed by unauthorized individuals or systems when it is being transferred via a network or as such. One way to do this is to use encryption techniques so that even if the data gets corrupted it cannot be decrypted. Encryption standards include  AES : Advanced Encryption Standard DES : Data Encryption Standard Data is commonly categorized based on the amount and type of damage that can be caused to it if it fell into wrong hands. Appropriate measures are then implemented according to the categories.  Integrity : It involves making sure that the data does not change in transit. It should not b...

Reconnaissance  It is also known as footprinting or information-gathering phase In this phase, information is gathered on three major groups/ categories Host Network Number of people involved in the network Before carrying out the attack this is the preparatory phase to gather information about the target in order to carry out a successful attack Fig 1.1 Comparison of types of reconnaissance Scanning This phase involves using the information gathered in the first phase to find vulnerabilities in the network that the hacker wants to hack.  It consists of three types of scanning Fig 1.2 Comparison of types of scanning Gaining access In this phase, the attacker finally manages to break into the system/network using certain tools, techniques, and processes by exploiting some vulnerabilities.  The attacker tries to get the administrator access to the network so that he can make changes to the system easily and effectively.  Maintaining access During this phase, the attack...