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Computer security, cybersecurity, or information technology security is the protection of computer systems and networks from information disclosure, theft of, or damage to their hardware, software, or electronic data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide.
Malware is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user's computer security and privacy. By contrast, software that causes harm due to some deficiency is typically described as a software bug. Malware poses serious problems to individuals and businesses on the Internet. According to Symantec's 2018 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), malware variants number has increased to 669,947,865 in 2017, which is twice as many malware variants as in 2016. Cybercrime, which includes malware attacks as well as other crimes committed by computer, was predicted to cost the world economy $6 trillion USD in 2021, and is increasing at a rate of 15% per year.
Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of security vulnerability that can be found in some web applications. XSS attacks enable attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same-origin policy. Cross-site scripting carried out on websites accounted for roughly 84% of all security vulnerabilities documented by Symantec up until 2007. XSS effects vary in range from petty nuisance to significant security risk, depending on the sensitivity of the data handled by the vulnerable site and the nature of any security mitigation implemented by the site's owner network.
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.
Trusted Platform Module is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys. The term can also refer to a chip conforming to the standard.
The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) is the coordination center of the computer emergency response team (CERT) for the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a non-profit United States federally funded research and development center. The CERT/CC researches software bugs that impact software and internet security, publishes research and information on its findings, and works with business and government to improve security of software and the internet as a whole.
Pwn2Own is a computer hacking contest held annually at the CanSecWest security conference. First held in April 2007 in Vancouver, the contest is now held twice a year, most recently in April 2021. Contestants are challenged to exploit widely used software and mobile devices with previously unknown vulnerabilities. Winners of the contest receive the device that they exploited and a cash prize. The Pwn2Own contest serves to demonstrate the vulnerability of devices and software in widespread use while also providing a checkpoint on the progress made in security since the previous year.
In computer security, virtual machine escape is the process of a program breaking out of the virtual machine on which it is running and interacting with the host operating system. A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". In 2008, a vulnerability in VMware discovered by Core Security Technologies made VM escape possible on VMware Workstation 6.0.2 and 5.5.4. A fully working exploit labeled Cloudburst was developed by Immunity Inc. for Immunity CANVAS. Cloudburst was presented in Black Hat USA 2009.
A bug bounty program is a deal offered by many websites, organizations and software developers by which individuals can receive recognition and compensation for reporting bugs, especially those pertaining to security exploits and vulnerabilities.
Heartbleed was a security bug in the OpenSSL cryptography library, which is a widely used implementation of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. It was introduced into the software in 2012 and publicly disclosed in April 2014. Heartbleed could be exploited regardless of whether the vulnerable OpenSSL instance is running as a TLS server or client. It resulted from improper input validation in the implementation of the TLS heartbeat extension. Thus, the bug's name derived from heartbeat. The vulnerability was classified as a buffer over-read, a situation where more data can be read than should be allowed.
Project Zero is a team of security analysts employed by Google tasked with finding zero-day vulnerabilities. It was announced on 15 July 2014.
Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a set of security-related instruction codes that are built into some Intel central processing units (CPUs). They allow user-level and operating system code to define protected private regions of memory, called enclaves. SGX is designed to be useful for implementing secure remote computation, secure web browsing, and digital rights management (DRM). Other applications include concealment of proprietary algorithms and of encryption keys.
Katie Moussouris is an American computer security researcher, entrepreneur, and pioneer in vulnerability disclosure, and is best known for her ongoing work advocating responsible security research. Previously a member of @stake, she created the bug bounty program at Microsoft and was directly involved in creating the U.S. Department of Defense's first bug bounty program for hackers. She previously served as Chief Policy Officer at HackerOne, a vulnerability disclosure company based in San Francisco, California, and currently is the founder and CEO of Luta Security.
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. is an American cybersecurity technology company based in Austin, Texas. It provides cloud workload and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services. The company has been involved in investigations of several high-profile cyberattacks, including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2015–16 cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the 2016 email leak involving the DNC.
Meltdown is a hardware vulnerability affecting Intel x86 microprocessors, IBM POWER processors, and some ARM-based microprocessors. It allows a rogue process to read all memory, even when it is not authorized to do so.
Foreshadow, known as L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) by Intel, is a vulnerability that affects modern microprocessors that was first discovered by two independent teams of researchers in January 2018, but was first disclosed to the public on 14 August 2018. The vulnerability is a speculative execution attack on Intel processors that may result in the disclosure of sensitive information stored in personal computers and third-party clouds. There are two versions: the first version (original/Foreshadow) targets data from SGX enclaves; and the second version (next-generation/Foreshadow-NG) targets virtual machines (VMs), hypervisors (VMM), operating systems (OS) kernel memory, and System Management Mode (SMM) memory. A listing of affected Intel hardware has been posted.
The Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) vulnerabilities are a set of weaknesses in Intel x86 microprocessors that use hyper-threading, and leak data across protection boundaries that are architecturally supposed to be secure. The attacks exploiting the vulnerabilities have been labeled Fallout, RIDL, ZombieLoad., and ZombieLoad 2.
BlueKeep is a security vulnerability that was discovered in Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) implementation, which allows for the possibility of remote code execution.
Mathias Payer is a Liechtensteinian computer scientist. His research is invested in software and system security. He is Associate Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and head of the HexHive research group.
John Jackson, also known as Mr. Hacking, is an American security researcher and founder of the white-hat hacking group Sakura Samurai.
References
- ↑ Richard A. Clarke; Robert K. Knake (2019). The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. Penguin. pp. 320–. ISBN 978-0-525-56197-2.
- ↑ "VENOM Vulnerability". Venom.crowdstrike.com. Archived from the original on May 13, 2015.
- ↑ Whittaker, Zack (May 13, 2015). "Bigger than Heartbleed, 'Venom' security vulnerability threatens most datacenters". ZDNet . Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ↑ Dan Goodin (May 14, 2015). "Extremely serious virtual machine bug threatens cloud providers everywhere". Ars Technica . Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ↑ Stone, Jeff (May 14, 2015). "Venom Security Flaw: Bug Exploits Floppy Drive, But Researchers Say Threat Overstated". International Business Times . IBT Media . Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ↑ Marc Dacier; Michael Bailey; Michalis Polychronakis; Manos Antonakakis (2017). Research in Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses: 20th International Symposium, RAID 2017, Atlanta, GA, USA, September 18–20, 2017, Proceedings. Springer. pp. 422–. ISBN 978-3-319-66332-6.
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