Network Security and Growing Problems Protecting your Privacy - Research Paper Example

Network security -Growing problems protecting your privacy Abstract Weeks before the Christmas holidays the news on TV reported that Target had a breach in there system and that millions of personal data were stolen. The hackers were able to collect information using malicious software. The hackers then were able gain access to the information from the Point of sale devices on the magnetic strip and armed with this information the thieves could then replicate new cards and go on a shopping spree. Criminals are now able to steal data that are stored on personal systems or in private industrial networks thru emails, texts, viruses, and even passively monitoring wireless systems for data dumping of financial or private information's. In the last decade federal governments like the FBI and other organizations have supported the Cyber command battling computer intrusions to fend of attacks network systems. Network security -Growing problems protecting your privacy The problem with network systems security is how easy a hacker can access your system to gain what the criminal is targeting. The methods can be done from across the globe being sent thru an email to millions of people to entice them to open or allow access from them into the network. This method can be done thru a link pasted in the email or it aggressively uploads a file once opened and once opened the malicious software penetrates into the network system loading or unloading data to its requester. Another method used by hackers is to use devices that passively listen to networks by accessing the broadcast being sent between the networks. When the hackers are trying to monitor the nodes or access points in the network the equipment typically used are network hardware typically found in electronic stores. The hardware that is typically used is Wi-Fi modem, laptop and a network analyzing software. The hardware listed can be then used to pick up Wi-Fi signals used in networks and then be managed in the software that is able to interpret its meaning. In Wi-Fi signals the information being broadcasted is usually "open" since you cannot see what is being sent over the stream. With the information being free a hacker with bad intentions can collect a surplus of information without being detected. The typical hacker that finds ways to steal private information are not industry IT or IS professionals but enthusiast that are technically savvy enough to understand the inner workings of a computer and software language to control them. In current days in the tech industry it's not out of the normality to hack to jailbreak a smart phone so you don't have to pay for the manufactures prices but instead get it for free. With the same concept hackers can access networks. Technology being the core of everyday life and technology being progressed faster than you can get comfortable using it, are being exploited to take advantage of unsuspecting victims that steals them the sense of being protected. Even on the internet there are cyber criminals that defrauding thousands of dollars and every day the IT professionals and members of the organization of the Cyber command and the Federal government are on a constant battle keeping the network and its systems safe from negligent activity. The research will look at privacy concerns with private and industrial networks, method and equipment used for harvesting private information and review data that grasps the need to being vigilante and preventing crime to be done online and on personal and private networks. Privacy concerns with private and industrial networks Mobile Devices There are a number of inherent dangers resulting from use of mobile devices. More importantly, computational capability and memory specifically volatile memory remains limited and is far much below what the desktop computers usually offer. In spite of these constraints, the modern phones greatly resemble laptop computers because of their ability to be networked, support multitasking and facilitate the installation of different third party tools and applications. However, the mobile devices often lack the appropriate defense mechanisms considered as necessary for the secure computers. Firewall software, antispyware program and antivirus programs are examples of such mechanisms. Focusing on the multiple security based bags featuring in the latest mobile devices, it becomes tricky providing the widely available services on mobile platforms without compromising on the security. Complexity A large web application is a typical situation in which the main issues of concern often surfaces. Many websites constitute a number of underlying systems and the overall complexity of such websites makes it challenging to change the system in case there is an intention to stop leakage of personal details or information. The newer internet trend, Web 2.0 seeks to build web applications where users are the chief contributors to the contents. The trend also brings into picture the movement towards services which can be easily used together in creating newer services and the storage of the data under use is left to the central servers whereas computation is redirected to the web browsers in the computing devices used by users. In general, Web 2.0 introduces interesting and new services but with a set of security challenges. The trend is headed to a side with more complexity. Usability Most of the online applications in industrial and private networks are far much below the satisfactory degree of usability. The long lasting dispute with a client who feed an invalid account number by entering an additional digit whilst transferring money in an online bank account stated in the report by Norwegian bank reveals the extent to which the web based applications suffer from usability issues(Klingsheim, 8). The client software application under use truncated the feed account number and this was never noticed by the customer resulting to the transfer of money into a wrong account number. Usability could have been a partial cause for this scene. Just a little effort like display in the event of such incidences would have helped to solve that problem. Again, many clients generally have a low understanding about the use of certificates and their role in authentication together with the Secure Sockets Layer protocol yet this is a common feature in most of the E-Commerce sites. Authentication Authentication involves establishment of an understood extent of confidence that the identifier is the end user. A higher level of confidence implies a stronger authentication while a reduced level of confidence will mean otherwise. Other than the design principles and methods, Schroeder and Saltzer in their book give a detailed description of the drawbacks that set in when the password based authentication in the online applications gets weak (172). They provide a description of an attack in which the attackers gets to know the user’s password while it is typed on the terminal then inappropriately use the credentials at some later time though in another terminal. Phishing attacks apply the selfsame idea by luring users to reveal their credentials to the malicious sites. Moreover, many websites set conditions that allow for choice of weaker passwords while creating new user accounts. The weak passwords become very easy to guess and this can result into a weakness that can greatly violate confidentiality if exploited by an attacker. Social engineering Social engineering refers to manipulation of people to carry out actions or divulge confidential information instead of breaking in or applying the technical skills used in cracking. This means of deception is a common practice among fellows who try to break into computer systems by disguising themselves as a trusted party then capturing the necessary access or authentication credentials from a naïve individual. One example of area of application of social engineering is email phishing. Network Attacks Found under this category is every activity carried out to deny, disrupt, destroy or degrade information stored inside a computer or a computer network. Attacks take any of the four forms: modification, interruption, interception and fabrication. Modification involves an attempt to change the contents of data while under transmission; Interruption involves breakage into a communication channel with the intention of inhibiting data transmission; Interception involves intrusion on information on transit followed by a redirection for unauthorized purposes whereas fabrication involves creation of some deceptive tool so as to deceive the unsuspecting users. It should be noted that network systems could experience passive or active attacks. In case an active attack occurs, there will be efforts to modify or gain unauthorized access to the data under transmission. On the hand, a passive attack will majorly involve unauthorized monitoring of the transmission pattern within a network system. Use of any of the forms can help gain information from a user and this can be used later on to steal the identity of that given user. The examples of common attacks found under this category are eaves dropping, denial of service plus session hijacking and spoofing. Eavesdropping Involved here is attack on the confidentiality of data while under transmission. WLANS, by their nature, radiate network traffics into the space making it possible to regulate whoever can receive signals within other wireless LAN installations. In WLAN, eavesdropping is a crucial threat since attackers are in a position of intercepting the transmission on air even from a distance which might be far from a company’s premises. Denial of Service In this attack, intruders flood a network with valid and invalid messages impacting on the availability of the network resources. WLANs remain vulnerable to because of the nature of the radio transmission. The lower bit rates of WLAN are easy to overwhelm leaving them open to DOS attacks. Session Hijacking and Spoofing This is a situation whereby an attacker is able to gain access to restricted resources or data by assumption of a valid user’s identity. It can happen because 802.11 networks never authenticate the source address of frames. An attacker might therefore spoof the address then hijack sessions. Moreover, 802.11 will never need the Access Points proving that they are truly APs[Sea11]. Use of Virtual Private Network The use of Virtual Private networks can help organizations protect the internet data whilst using the public network. They will also permit people to gain access to the functionalities related to the way to establish connections to the private network. An instance of use of VPN is a course instructor accessing their departmental network while off campus. However, the operating security of a computer network always lacks while external devices gaining access to a secured network such as VPN. Every issue or pitfall in the device gets into the network along with the device itself. This offers a rather obstructive route for Trojans, Malware, Spyware and viruses seeking to go through an extensive domain. Another potential danger with granting the employees permission to remotely access the organization’s network using personal devices is the introduction of exit points for cooperate data. For instance, confidential information intended to remain within the network could end up being saved inside a tablet or Smartphone. Social Networking Social networking refers to an avenue of the online sites which focuses on establishing relationships among fellows who might bear similarities in activities or areas of interest. It gives an opportunity for user interaction over the computer network system. Users are always identified using their profiles and the profiles contain the user’s location, photo, name and friends and family among others. Even though the social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook and MySpace are known to have taken the social media user interaction to a notch higher, there are a number of privacy concerns that are particular to social networks include 3rd party personal details disclosure, social profiling, location disclosure and cyberstalking. Cyberstalking There are applications specifically dealing in cyberstalking. An example of such is the Creepy application which is capable of tracking an individual’s location on a map through the use of photos that are uploaded to Flickr and Twitter. After uploading a photo to the social networking site, a person’s most recent location can be tracked by other people. There are smart phones capable of integrating the latitude and longitude coordinates into the uploaded photo attempt sending this information to the application. Every user of the application is able to search for particular persons then get them in their present locations. This can turn to be a threat among users with a tendency to share their details with a vast collection of followers. Social Profiling In social profiling, the social networking media is allowed to filter through different advertisements then have particular adverts assigned to given age groups. Websites like Spokeo have made known the feasibility of social data aggregation across the social websites along with its integration with the public records. In a certain study in 2011, these issues were highlighted through the evaluation of the level of unintended leakage of information over a big user group with different number of social network sites. The study revealed some pieces of information that could be used to compromise the security of the network systems hence found to be an issue of concern. Third Party Disclosure Many of the social networks are fond of unintentionally offering personal information belonging to the visitors to the 3rd party tracking and advertising sites. This practice brings about the idea of personal information being inadvertently sent to the 3rd party advertising sites through the use of cookies and referrer strings. Method and equipment used for harvesting private information At present, social engineering, phishing and keyloggers are the main means to attaining cyber fraud. Phishing Phishing refers to a move to get information like passwords, usernames, or credit card details through masquerading as a trustworthy entity within an electronic communication. Communications claiming to be originating from auction sites, social websites or online payment processors are often used in luring the unsuspecting lot. Phishing mails are likely to contain links that lead o malicious sites. Phishing is basically attained through instant messaging or email spoofing and will more frequently direct the users to provide details at a non-legitimate site whose user interface bears a lot of similarity with that of the legitimate one. Keyloggers Keyloggers refer to software programs or devices that are designed to secretly monitor and log all keystrokes. One distinguishing factor between the keyloggers from other malicious programs is that they never pose any threat to the systems themselves. However, they can pose a great threat to system users because of their ability to intercept passwords as well as other pieces of confidential information keyed in using the keyboard. For this reason, the cyber criminals can access the account numbers and the PIN codes for E-Payment systems, email addresses, email passwords and usernames among other details. After gaining access to confidential user data, the cyber criminals can transfer money from a user account with a lot of ease. Alternatively, they can gain access to a user’s online gaming account. There are moments when gaining access to confidential data results into greater losses whose value go far much beyond a few dollars. Keyloggers can be employed in both political and industrial contexts. In politics, they could be used to gain access to data stored in a classified government material and this will perhaps compromise the security of the state owned institutions and organizations. In the industrial sector, the keyloggers could be used to gain access to proprietary commercial information and this can compromise on the security of the commercial organization. Social Engineering Use of psychological manipulation with the motive of gaining access to private and sensitive information is a common practice in both private and industrial computer networks. Both black hat and white hat computer hackers apply social engineering coupled with computer based strategies in order to gain access to information. Criminals admit that it is easy tricking a person into issuing sensitive information like passwords that trying to attain the same through the use of computer based approaches. One example of the technique that social engineering uses is pretexting. In this approach, the target subjects are engaged in a particular fashion with some kind of background knowledge that increases their chances of persuasion to reveal sensitive and private details. The newly acquired details can always be used in the subsequent pretexts particularly in scenes whereby the social engineer targets a larger group. Review Data This section of the paper presents cases on the instances where cyber attacks have been reported. In the book Indian Defense Review Oct – Dec 2011, Verma reports that in December 1998, DoD/ USAF established joint task force on Computer Network Defense ITF-CND. The task force was headed by Maj Gen and was to work with the Navy, Army and Marine Corps. This was an immediate malware attack on US Military nets. The US took about 14 months in cleaning up the virus from its systems. It also revealed the possible damage that can result from an improperly secured network (91). Another incident reported by Verma is Cyber war exercises named “Solar Sunrise” and “Eligible Receiver“ were conducted in which Federal Agencies or services, Israeli analysts and Californian teens attacked the Defense networks. Weaknesses and vulnerabilities were identified and preventive step initiated. As per another report published in 2012, six main American banks were hit in a wave of computer attacks by a troop that claims the Middle Eastern ties. The attack resulted into a set of internet blackouts and delays in the online banking process. The banks experienced denial of service attack whereby the hackers barraged the website using traffic until it gets down. Though the attacks of this type do not in any way affect the computer network system of an organization, they can turn to be a nuisance to customers. The scene left the customers of the six affected bank upset because they could not gain access to their accounts and none of the banks offered any explanations to clients on what was going on. Based on the view of the security researchers, the attack was too basic too render a number of the American banks offline. On the other hand, the experts had the view that it seemed implausible trying to believe that the method used would result into an attack of that great capacity. From the cases, it is evident that losses are bond to occur whenever attackers decide to exploit any vulnerability within a system. Therefore, users should bear in mind that a lot of threats arise during use of a computer system hence the need to be vigilant. This will go a long way in helping the organization avoid huge loss that result from information loss. With this in place, the amount that would have otherwise been spent in recovery of lost data can be channeled into other aspects of organization like boosting staff morale. Preventive measures Described in this paper section are the actions, processes, devices or technologies that can be used to prevent the concerns that arise in the network systems. Technical measures There are varied technical preventive measures that can be used to counteract the violation of privacy and make systems harder against any possible attack. Use of firewalls still remains to be the first measure in an effort to prevent crimes and attaining a greater level of security in a computer network. The measure is put in place by setting the Access Control List that determines the traffic and services allowed to pass through the check point. Antivirus software could be used in preventing a malicious code from propagating inside the system. Many computer viruses feature similar behaviors that allow for the signature based detection. Heuristics like file emulation and file analysis can as well help in identifying and elimination of a virus program. Other than regularly updating the virus definition, there is need to apply the operating system patches, hotfixes and service packs. Cryptography technique can be adopted in encrypting information through the use of an algorithm often referred to as cipher in masking information that is on transit or under storage. For instance, tunneling takes a payload protocol like Internet Protocol then encapsulates the same in a encrypted delivery protocol over a Secure Socket Layer, Virtual Private Networks or Transport Layer Security to ensure that data remains secure during transmission. Encryption is as well applicable on the file level through the use of encryption protocols such as Advanced Encryption Standards, Triple DES and Data Encryption Standards. There is need for some automated programs and technicians to consistently carry out network vulnerability test. This could be done in a full scale fashion or be targeted to specific devices and systems within the network to evaluate on the degree of their security. Moreover, the network monitoring tools can be useful in detecting suspicious traffic or intrusions on both small and large networks. Physical deterrents like card access keys, locks and biometric devices could be used in preventing criminals from gaining a physical access to the machines within the network. Use of strong passwords both for accessing the computer systems and the BIOS of a computer system will be an efficient step to curb cyber crimes. Legal Measures The authority can define and give details of what would be considered as a cyber crime and the punishments that an involved fellow would be subjected to. In addition, the authority can define and implement policies which require that applications intended for use in the computer networks meet a given standard. Economic Measures Prior to feeding any personal information or making payment, site visitors need to find out what other people think about the relevant site. A visitor should not trust the comments left on a site because the cyber criminals could participate in writing such comments hence the need to get the opinions of the people that you know in person. Try to avoid issuing the details of your bank cards over the web. In case a need for making an online payment arises, acquire an e-money account or a separate card then transfer the needed amount to the account or card before beginning the purchase exercise. In case an online store or investment fund has a website belonging to the third level domain particularly sites that are characterized by free hosting services, there should be some suspicion. Therefore, every organization should strive and find some amount or registration in a second level domain. If visiting an online shop, you would need to check wherever the domain that is under use by the online shop was registered. You also need to check the period of registration, the physical location of the shop and whether the telephone number or addresses provided look genuine. You should be alarmed in case you discover a 1 month period following the registration of the domain name when the company makes claims of having in the market for over two years. Make payments only after receiving goods or services and this rule is inclusive of courier delivery. It would be better erring on the side of caution then select a totally different store rather than risk being tricked. Do not reply to mailings that investment funds, banks or other financial organizations make. These organizations do not make mass mailings. If you have doubts, make use of the telephone in checking whether the email is actually originating from the stated sender. However, you should never use the telephone number in the message for the reason that a message sent by the cyber criminals is likely to contain a phone number that belongs to that criminal. Behavioral Measures One of the behavioral measures to combat cyber crimes would be public awareness. Public awareness campaigns could be used in educating the general public on the different threats of cyber crimes while highlighting the several ways to deal with the crimes. It is through this avenue that businesses can employ IT based policies to train or educate workers on the values and practices that are useful in ensuring electronic security like strong password use, signs of a malicious code and frequent patching of the security vulnerabilities. The financial agencies like credit bureaus and banks should require verification of data which the identity thieves cannot obtain with ease. There are institutions that have embraced this measure though others are just about to. Information about a user’s income tax or past address forms part of the entities that should be verified. In a short while, the verification is expected to extend to the use of biometrics. Software Risk Management and Improved Development Practices System designers, programmers and architects have the duty for creating more systems for the future. It is necessary to adopt practices such as design for user approach where usability becomes a point of focus during the design stage. Programmers could also improve the coding practices so that error occurrence is avoided as much as possible. System architects need to review user requirements and include all the missing functionalities in the business specification. Proper risk management during application development increases the chances of delivery of a higher quality product or service by the involved team. Such products and services are less likely to raise concerns while under use. The benefits associated with use of risk management as a means of success in software projects is something that has been mentioned for quite a long time. In their argument, McGraw and Verdon state that risk management ought to be embedded in a software development life cycle. They further state that risk management is an important pillar in attaining software security. Microsoft Cooperation is an example of a company that has witnessed improved security in their software after inclusion of a proper risk management plan in the software development process. There are incidences where businesses assign risks to the stakeholders who are not able to understand risks before they see the impact. However, researchers who have no commercial interest in an application are the best people to help analyze the risks of a given application instead of the stakeholders who might be incapacitated to notice an unfair assignment of risks Understanding of a Company’s Security Chain It is necessary for members of an organization to be in a position to determine and evaluate the entire security chain of a company for the reason that the network systems of an organization is likely to consist of multiple sub systems that depend upon each other. Whenever a single subsystem or link is exploited, the entire company becomes vulnerable to attacks by the cyber criminals. In the context of the Virtual Private Networks, the severity of the threat caused by providence of remote network access should never be treated with a little regard because a breach of a computer system’s security can impact an organization in various ways ranging from simple annoyance to costly recovery of lost data hence the need to be vigilant about system security. Further Work The society is reliant on computer systems and there is an observed increase in the use of computer networks for interaction. The use of social networks also seems to be growing day by day. In spite of great convenience coming with increased people interaction, a lot of privacy and security issues arise. A more wide ranging research that is specific to social networks would be interesting. Users and site visitors could get serious insights that would make them be careful about the type of information they give and the activities that they engage in while using the social networking sites Conclusion The amount of valuable information to be managed inside the networked computer systems increases on daily basis the increasing availability of services seems to increase the attack surfaces. Some of the avenues of attack have remained unknown to many users of the network system. Therefore, users need to be vigilant about system safety to avoid loss of valuable information. Again, a campaign intended to have users informed about the “hidden” points of attack would be necessary in eliminating the privacy concerns that use of the web based applications present. References Purser, S. (2004). A practical guide to managing information security. Boston, MA: Artech House. 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