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In information security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomaly where a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations.
In computer security, a side-channel attack is any attack based on extra information that can be gathered because of the fundamental way a computer protocol or algorithm is implemented, rather than flaws in the design of the protocol or algorithm itself or minor, but potentially devastating, mistakes or oversights in the implementation. Timing information, power consumption, electromagnetic leaks, and sound are examples of extra information which could be exploited to facilitate side-channel attacks.
Vulnerabilities are flaws in a computer system that weaken the overall security of the device/system. Vulnerabilities can be weaknesses in either the hardware itself, or the software that runs on the hardware. Vulnerabilities can be exploited by a threat actor, such as an attacker, to cross privilege boundaries within a computer system. To exploit a vulnerability, an attacker must have at least one applicable tool or technique that can connect to a system weakness. In this frame, vulnerabilities are also known as the attack surface.
A penetration test, colloquially known as a pen test or ethical hacking, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system; this is not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment. The test is performed to identify weaknesses, including the potential for unauthorized parties to gain access to the system's features and data, as well as strengths, enabling a full risk assessment to be completed.
In the context of software engineering, software quality refers to two related but distinct notions:
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is an online community that produces freely-available articles, methodologies, documentation, tools, and technologies in the field of web application security. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) provides free and open resources. It is led by a non-profit called The OWASP Foundation. The OWASP Top 10 - 2021 is the published result of recent research based on comprehensive data compiled from over 40 partner organizations.
Application security includes all tasks that introduce a secure software development life cycle to development teams. Its final goal is to improve security practices and, through that, to find, fix and preferably prevent security issues within applications. It encompasses the whole application life cycle from requirements analysis, design, implementation, verification as well as maintenance.
Threat modeling is a process by which potential threats, such as structural vulnerabilities or the absence of appropriate safeguards, can be identified and enumerated, and countermeasures prioritized. The purpose of threat modeling is to provide defenders with a systematic analysis of what controls or defenses need to be included, given the nature of the system, the probable attacker's profile, the most likely attack vectors, and the assets most desired by an attacker. Threat modeling answers questions like “Where am I most vulnerable to attack?”, “What are the most relevant threats?”, and “What do I need to do to safeguard against these threats?”.
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is a free and open industry standard for assessing the severity of computer system security vulnerabilities. CVSS attempts to assign severity scores to vulnerabilities, allowing responders to prioritize responses and resources according to threat. Scores are calculated based on a formula that depends on several metrics that approximate ease and impact of an exploit. Scores range from 0 to 10, with 10 being the most severe. While many utilize only the CVSS Base score for determining severity, temporal and environmental scores also exist, to factor in availability of mitigations and how widespread vulnerable systems are within an organization, respectively.
STRIDE is a model for identifying computer security threats developed by Praerit Garg and Loren Kohnfelder at Microsoft. It provides a mnemonic for security threats in six categories.
ModSecurity, sometimes called Modsec, is an open-source web application firewall (WAF). Originally designed as a module for the Apache HTTP Server, it has evolved to provide an array of Hypertext Transfer Protocol request and response filtering capabilities along with other security features across a number of different platforms including Apache HTTP Server, Microsoft IIS and Nginx. It is a free software released under the Apache license 2.0.
Information technology risk, IT risk, IT-related risk, or cyber risk is any risk related to information technology. While information has long been appreciated as a valuable and important asset, the rise of the knowledge economy and the Digital Revolution has led to organizations becoming increasingly dependent on information, information processing and especially IT. Various events or incidents that compromise IT in some way can therefore cause adverse impacts on the organization's business processes or mission, ranging from inconsequential to catastrophic in scale.
OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software platform consists of interrelated components that control diverse, multi-vendor hardware pools of processing, storage, and networking resources throughout a data center. Users manage it either through a web-based dashboard, through command-line tools, or through RESTful web services.
In computer security, a threat is a potential negative action or event facilitated by a vulnerability that results in an unwanted impact to a computer system or application.
In information security, computer security and network security, an asset is any data, device, or other component of the environment that supports information-related activities. Assets generally include hardware, software and confidential information. Assets should be protected from illicit access, use, disclosure, alteration, destruction, and/or theft, resulting in loss to the organization.
In information security, risk factor is a collective name for circumstances affecting the likelihood or impact of a security risk.
IT risk management is the application of risk management methods to information technology in order to manage IT risk, i.e.:
Information security awareness is an evolving part of information security that focuses on raising consciousness regarding potential risks of the rapidly evolving forms of information and the rapidly evolving threats to that information which target human behavior. As threats have matured and information has increased in value, attackers have increased their capabilities and expanded to broader intentions, developed more attack methods and methodologies and are acting on more diverse motives. As information security controls and processes have matured, attacks have matured to circumvent controls and processes. Attackers have targeted and successfully exploited individuals human behavior to breach corporate networks and critical infrastructure systems. Targeted individuals who are unaware of information and threats may unknowingly circumvent traditional security controls and processes and enable a breach of the organization. In response, information security awareness is maturing. Cybersecurity as a business problem has dominated the agenda of most chief information officers (CIO)s, exposing a need for countermeasures to today's cyber threat landscape. The goal of Information security awareness is to make everyone aware that they are susceptible to the opportunities and challenges in today's threat landscape, change human risk behaviors and create or enhance a secure organizational culture.
Security, as part of the software development process, is an ongoing process involving people and practices, and ensures application confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Secure software is the result of security aware software development processes where security is built in and thus software is developed with security in mind.
Vulnerability assessment is a process of defining, identifying and classifying the security holes in information technology systems. An attacker can exploit a vulnerability to violate the security of a system. Some known vulnerabilities are Authentication Vulnerability, Authorization Vulnerability and Input Validation Vulnerability.
References
- ↑ Shostack, Adam. "Experiences Threat Modeling at Microsoft" (PDF).
- ↑ "Do you use DREAD as it is?". Archived from the original on 2016-03-06. Retrieved 2014-09-08.
- ↑ "Security/OSSA-Metrics - OpenStack". wiki.openstack.org.
- ↑ "Security/OSSA-Metrics - OpenStack". wiki.openstack.org.
- ↑ "Threat Modeling | OWASP". owasp.org.
