computer security this article is part of a series oncomputer hacking history phreaking cryptovirology hacking of consumer electronics list of hackers hacker culture ethic hacker manifesto black hat grey hat white hat hackerspace hackathon hacktivism maker culture conferences black hat briefings chaos communication congress def con hackers on planet earth computer crime crimeware list of computer criminals script kiddie hacking tools security os vulnerability exploit payload social engineering practice sites hackthissite zoneh malware rootkit backdoor trojan horse virus worm spyware ransomware logic bomb botnet keystroke logging antivirus software firewall hids computer security application security network security groups chaos computer club homebrew computer club defunct legion of doom defunct masters of deception defunct red and blue teams publications 2600 the hacker quarterly hacker news nuts and volts phrack vte computer security cybersecurity or information technology security it security is the protection of computer systems from theft or damage to their hardware software or electronic data as well as from disruption or misdirection of the services they provide the field is growing in importance due to increasing reliance on computer systems the internet vulnerabilities and attacks vulnerability computing a vulnerability is a weakness in design implementation operation or internal control most of the vulnerabilities that have been discovered are documented in the common vulnerabilities and exposures cve database an exploitable vulnerability is one for which at least one working attack or exploit exists vulnerabilities are often hunted or exploited with the aid of automated tools or manually using customized scripts to secure a computer system it is important to understand the attacks that can be made against it and these threats can typically be classified into one of these categories below backdoor a backdoor in a computer system a cryptosystem or an algorithm is any secret method of bypassing normal authentication or security controls they may exist for a number of reasons including by original design or from poor configuration they may have been added by an authorized party to allow some legitimate access or by an attacker for malicious reasons but regardless of the motives for their existence they create a vulnerability denialofservice attacks denial of service attacks dos are designed to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users attackers can deny service to individual victims such as by deliberately entering a wrong password enough consecutive times to cause the victims account to be locked or they may overload the capabilities of a machine or network and block all users at once while a network attack from a single ip address can be blocked by adding a new firewall rule many forms of distributed denial of service ddos attacks are possible where the attack comes from a large number of points and defending is much more difficult such attacks can originate from the zombie computers of a botnet but a range of other techniques are possible including reflection and amplification attacks where innocent systems are fooled into sending traffic to the victim directaccess attacks an unauthorized user gaining physical access to a computer is most likely able to directly copy data from it they may also compromise security by making operating system modifications installing software worms keyloggers covert listening devices or using wireless mice even when the system is protected by standard security measures these may be able to be bypassed by booting another operating system or tool from a cdrom or other bootable media disk encryption and trusted platform module are designed to prevent these attacks eavesdropping eavesdropping is the act of surreptitiously listening to a private conversation typically between hosts on a network for instance programs such as carnivore and narusinsight have been used by the fbi and nsa to eavesdrop on the systems of internet service providers even machines that operate as a closed system ie with no contact to the outside world can be eavesdropped upon via monitoring the faint electromagnetic transmissions generated by the hardware tempest is a specification by the nsa referring to these attacks multivector polymorphic attacks surfacing in 2017 a new class of multivector phishing phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames passwords and credit card details directly from users phishing is typically carried out by email spoofing or instant messaging and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one preying on a victims trust phishing can be classified as a form of social engineering privilege escalation privilege escalation describes a situation where an attacker with some level of restricted access is able to without authorization elevate their privileges or access level for example a standard computer user may be able to fool the system into giving them access to restricted data or even to become root and have full unrestricted access to a system social engineering social engineering security social engineering aims to convince a user to disclose secrets such as passwords card numbers etc by for example impersonating a bank a contractor or a customer a common scam involves fake ceo emails sent to accounting and finance departments in early 2016 the fbi reported that the scam has cost us businesses more than 2bn in about two years in may 2016 the milwaukee bucks nba team was the victim of this type of cyber scam with a perpetrator impersonating the teams president peter feigin resulting in the handover of all the teams employees 2015 w2 tax forms spoofing spoofing attack spoofing is the act of masquerading as a valid entity through falsification of data such as an ip address or username in order to gain access to information or resources that one is otherwise unauthorized to obtain there are several types of spoofing including email spoofing where an attacker forges the sending from or source address of an email ip address spoofing where an attacker alters the source ip address in a network packet to hide their identity or impersonate another computing system mac spoofing where an attacker modifies the media access control mac address of their network interface to pose as a valid user on a network biometric spoofing where an attacker produces a fake biometric sample to pose as another user tampering tampering describes a malicious modification of products socalled evil maid attacks and security services planting of surveillance capability into routers are examples incident response planning and organization incident response is an organized approach to addressing and managing the aftermath of a computer security incident or compromise with the goal of preventing a breach or thwarting a cyberattack an incident that is not identified and managed at the time of intrusion typically escalates to a more impactful event such as a data breach or system failure the intended outcome of a computer security incident response plan is to limit damage and reduce recovery time and costs responding to compromises quickly can mitigate exploited vulnerabilities restore services and processes and minimize impact and losses incident response planning allows an organization to establish a series of best practices to stop an intrusion before it causes damage typical incident response plans contain a set of written instructions that outline the organizations response to a cyberattack without a documented plan in place an organization may not successfully detect an intrusion or compromise and stakeholders may not understand their roles processes and procedures during an escalation slowing the organizations response and resolution there are four key components of a computer security incident response plan preparation preparing stakeholders on the procedures for handling computer security incidents or compromises detection analysis identifying and investigating suspicious activity to confirm a security incident prioritizing the response based on impact and coordinating notification of the incident containment eradication recovery isolating affected systems to prevent escalation and limit impact pinpointing the genesis of the incident removing malware affected systems and bad actors from the environment and restoring systems and data when a threat no longer remains post incident activity post mortem analysis of the incident its root cause and the organizations response with the intent of improving the incident response plan and future response efforts information security culture employee behavior can have a big impact on information security in organizations cultural concepts can help different segments of the organization work effectively or work against effectiveness towards information security within an organization exploring the relationship between organizational culture and information security culture provides the following definition of information security culture isc is the totality of patterns of behavior in an organization that contribute to the protection of information of all kinds andersson and reimers 2014 found that employees often do not see themselves as part of the organization information security effort and often take actions that ignore organizational information security best interests preevaluation to identify the awareness of information security within employees and to analyze the current security policy strategic planning to come up with a better awareness program clear targets need to be set clustering people is helpful to achieve it operative planning a good security culture can be established based on internal communication managementbuyin and security awareness and a training program implementation four stages should be used to implement the information security culture they are commitment of the management communication with organizational members courses for all organizational members commitment of the employees systems at risk the growth in the number of computer systems and the increasing reliance upon them of individuals businesses industries and governments means that there are an increasing number of systems at risk financial systems the computer systems of financial regulators and financial institutions like the us securities and exchange commission swift investment banks and commercial banks are prominent hacking targets for cybercriminals interested in manipulating markets and making illicit gains instore payment systems and atms have also been tampered with in order to gather customer account data and pins utilities and industrial equipment computers control functions at many utilities including coordination of telecommunications the power grid nuclear power plants and valve opening and closing in water and gas networks the internet is a potential attack vector for such machines if connected but the stuxnet worm demonstrated that even equipment controlled by computers not connected to the internet can be vulnerable in 2014 the computer emergency readiness team a division of the department of homeland security investigated 79 hacking incidents at energy companies aviation the aviation industry is very reliant on a series of complex systems which could be attacked in europe with the paneuropean network service air navigation service providers are moving to create their own dedicated networks the consequences of a successful attack range from loss of confidentiality to loss of system integrity air traffic control outages loss of aircraft and even loss of life consumer devices desktop computers and laptops are commonly targeted to gather passwords or financial account information or to construct a botnet to attack another target smartphones tablet computers smart watches and other mobile devices such as quantified self devices like activity trackers have sensors such as cameras microphones gps receivers compasses and accelerometers which could be exploited and may collect personal information including sensitive health information wifi bluetooth and cell phone networks on any of these devices could be used as attack vectors and sensors might be remotely activated after a successful breach the increasing number of home automation devices such as the nest thermostat are also potential targets large corporations large corporations are common targets in many cases this is aimed at financial gain through identity theft and involves data breaches such as the loss of millions of clients credit card details by home depot some cyberattacks are ordered by foreign governments these governments engage in cyberwarfare with the intent to spread their propaganda sabotage or spy on their targets many people believe the russian government played a major role in the us presidential election of 2016 by using twitter and facebook to affect the results of the election medical records have been targeted for use in general identify theft health insurance fraud and impersonating patients to obtain prescription drugs for recreational purposes or resale not all attacks are financially motivated however for example security firm hbgary federal suffered a serious series of attacks in 2011 from hacktivist group anonymous in retaliation for the firms ceo claiming to have infiltrated their group automobiles see also autonomous car potential disadvantages automated driving system risks and liabilities and automotive hacking vehicles are increasingly computerized with engine timing cruise control antilock brakes seat belt tensioners door locks airbags and advanced driverassistance systems on many models additionally connected cars may use wifi and bluetooth to communicate with onboard consumer devices and the cell phone network selfdriving cars are expected to be even more complex all of these systems carry some security risk and such issues have gained wide attention manufacturers are reacting in a number of ways with tesla in 2016 pushing out some security fixes over the air into its cars computer systems in the area of autonomous vehicles in september 2016 the united states department of transportation announced some initial safety standards and called for states to come up with uniform policies government government and military computer systems are commonly attacked by activists and financial systems are also potential targets as they are now all largely computerized passports and government id cards that control access to facilities which use rfid can be vulnerable to cloning internet of things and physical vulnerabilities the internet of things iot is the network of physical objects such as devices vehicles and buildings that are embedded with electronics software sensors and network connectivity that enables them to collect and exchange data while the iot creates opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computerbased systems it also provides opportunities for misuse in particular as the internet of things spreads widely cyber attacks are likely to become an increasingly physical rather than simply virtual threat medical systems see also medical device hijack and medical data breach medical devices have either been successfully attacked or had potentially deadly vulnerabilities demonstrated including both inhospital diagnostic equipment energy sector in distributed generation systems the risk of cyber attacks is real according to daily energy insider an attack could cause a loss of power in a large area for a long period of time and such an attack could have just as severe consequences as a natural disaster the district of columbia is considering creating a distributed energy resources der authority within the city with the goal being for customers to have more insight into their own energy use and giving the local electric utility pepco the chance to better estimate energy demand the dc proposal however would allow thirdparty vendors to create numerous points of energy distribution which could potentially create more opportunities for cyberattackers to threaten the electric grid impact of security breaches serious financial damage has been caused by security breaches but because there is no standard model for estimating the cost of an incident the only data available is that which is made public by the organizations involved several computer security consulting firms produce estimates of total worldwide losses attributable to virus and worm attacks and to hostile digital acts in general the 2003 loss estimates by these firms range from 13 billion worms and viruses only to 226 billion for all forms of covert attacks the reliability of these estimates is often challenged the underlying methodology is basically anecdotal however reasonable estimates of the financial cost of security breaches can actually help organizations make rational investment decisions according to the classic gordonloeb model analyzing the optimal investment level in information security one can conclude that the amount a firm spends to protect information should generally be only a small fraction of the expected loss ie the expected value of the loss resulting from a cyberinformation security breach attacker motivation as with physical security the motivations for breaches of computer security vary between attackers some are thrillseekers or vandals some are activists others are criminals looking for financial gain statesponsored attackers are now common and well resourced but started with amateurs such as markus hess who hacked for the kgb as recounted by clifford stoll in the cuckoos egg a standard part of threat modelling for any particular system is to identify what might motivate an attack on that system and who might be motivated to breach it the level and detail of precautions will vary depending on the system to be secured a home personal computer bank and classified military network face very different threats even when the underlying technologies in use are similar computer protection countermeasures in computer security a countermeasure is an action device procedure or technique that reduces a threat a vulnerability or an attack by eliminating or preventing it by minimizing the harm it can cause or by discovering and reporting it so that corrective action can be taken some common countermeasures are listed in the following sections security by design secure by design security by design or alternately secure by design means that the software has been designed from the ground up to be secure in this case security is considered as a main feature some of the techniques in this approach include the principle of least privilege where each part of the system has only the privileges that are needed for its function that way even if an attacker gains access to that part they have only limited access to the whole system automated theorem proving to prove the correctness of crucial software subsystems code reviews and unit testing approaches to make modules more secure where formal correctness proofs are not possible defense in depth where the design is such that more than one subsystem needs to be violated to compromise the integrity of the system and the information it holds default secure settings and design to fail secure rather than fail insecure see failsafe for the equivalent in safety engineering ideally a secure system should require a deliberate conscious knowledgeable and free decision on the part of legitimate authorities in order to make it insecure audit trails tracking system activity so that when a security breach occurs the mechanism and extent of the breach can be determined storing audit trails remotely where they can only be appended to can keep intruders from covering their tracks full disclosure of all vulnerabilities to ensure that the window of vulnerability is kept as short as possible when bugs are discovered security architecture the open security architecture organization defines it security architecture as the design artifacts that describe how the security controls security countermeasures are positioned and how they relate to the overall information technology architecture these controls serve the purpose to maintain the systems quality attributes confidentiality integrity availability accountability and assurance services techopedia defines security architecture as a unified security design that addresses the necessities and potential risks involved in a certain scenario or environment it also specifies when and where to apply security controls the design process is generally reproducible the key attributes of security architecture are the relationship of different components and how they depend on each other the determination of controls based on risk assessment good practice finances and legal matters the standardization of controls security measures a state of computer security is the conceptual ideal attained by the use of the three processes threat prevention detection and response these processes are based on various policies and system components which include the following user account access controls and cryptography can protect systems files and data respectively firewalls are by far the most common prevention systems from a network security perspective as they can if properly configured shield access to internal network services and block certain kinds of attacks through packet filtering firewalls can be both hardware or softwarebased intrusion detection system ids products are designed to detect network attacks inprogress and assist in postattack forensics while audit trails and logs serve a similar function for individual systems response is necessarily defined by the assessed security requirements of an individual system and may cover the range from simple upgrade of protections to notification of legal authorities counterattacks and the like in some special cases a complete destruction of the compromised system is favored as it may happen that not all the compromised resources are detected today computer security comprises mainly preventive measures like firewalls or an exit procedure a firewall can be defined as a way of filtering network data between a host or a network and another network such as the internet and can be implemented as software running on the machine hooking into the network stack or in the case of most unixbased operating systems such as linux built into the operating system kernel to provide realtime filtering and blocking another implementation is a socalled physical firewall which consists of a separate machine filtering network traffic firewalls are common amongst machines that are permanently connected to the internet some organizations are turning to big data platforms such as apache hadoop to extend data accessibility and machine learning to detect advanced persistent threats however relatively few organisations maintain computer systems with effective detection systems and fewer still have organized response mechanisms in place as a result as reuters points out companies for the first time report they are losing more through electronic theft of data than physical stealing of assets vulnerability management vulnerability management vulnerability management is the cycle of identifying and remediating or mitigating vulnerabilities especially in software and firmware vulnerability management is integral to computer security and network security vulnerabilities can be discovered with a vulnerability scanner which analyzes a computer system in search of known vulnerabilities such as open ports insecure software configuration and susceptibility to malware beyond vulnerability scanning many organisations contract outside security auditors to run regular penetration tests against their systems to identify vulnerabilities in some sectors this is a contractual requirement reducing vulnerabilities while formal verification of the correctness of computer systems is possible but these make up a very small percentage of the market two factor authentication is a method for mitigating unauthorized access to a system or sensitive information it requires something you know a password or pin and something you have a card dongle cellphone or other piece of hardware this increases security as an unauthorized person needs both of these to gain access social engineering and direct computer access physical attacks can only be prevented by noncomputer means which can be difficult to enforce relative to the sensitivity of the information training is often involved to help mitigate this risk but even in a highly disciplined environments eg military organizations social engineering attacks can still be difficult to foresee and prevent enoculation derived from inoculation theory seeks to prevent social engineering and other fraudulent tricks or traps by instilling a resistance to persuasion attempts through exposure to similar or related attempts it is possible to reduce an attackers chances by keeping systems up to date with security patches and updates using a security scanner orand hiring competent people responsible for securitythis statement is ambiguous even systems developed by competent people get penetrated the effects of data lossdamage can be reduced by careful backing up and insurance hardware protection mechanisms see also computer security compromised by hardware failure while hardware may be a source of insecurity such as with microchip vulnerabilities maliciously introduced during the manufacturing process hardwarebased or assisted computer security also offers an alternative to softwareonly computer security using devices and methods such as dongles trusted platform modules intrusionaware cases drive locks disabling usb ports and mobileenabled access may be considered more secure due to the physical access or sophisticated backdoor access required in order to be compromised each of these is covered in more detail below usb dongles are typically used in software licensing schemes to unlock software capabilities trusted platform modules tpms secure devices by integrating cryptographic capabilities onto access devices through the use of microprocessors or socalled computersonachip tpms used in conjunction with serverside software offer a way to detect and authenticate hardware devices preventing unauthorized network and data access computer case intrusion detection refers to a device typically a pushbutton switch which detects when a computer case is opened the firmware or bios is programmed to show an alert to the operator when the computer is booted up the next time drive locks are essentially software tools to encrypt hard drives making them inaccessible to thieves disabling usb ports is a security option for preventing unauthorized and malicious access to an otherwise secure computer infected usb dongles connected to a network from a computer inside the firewall are considered by the magazine network world as the most common hardware threat facing computer networks disconnecting or disabling peripheral devices like camera gps removable storage etc that are not in use mobileenabled access devices are growing in popularity due to the ubiquitous nature of cell phones builtin capabilities such as bluetooth the newer bluetooth low energy le near field communication nfc on nonios devices and biometric validation such as thumb print readers as well as qr code reader software designed for mobile devices offer new secure ways for mobile phones to connect to access control systems these control systems provide computer security and can also be used for controlling access to secure buildings secure operating systems securityevaluated operating system one use of the term computer security refers to technology that is used to implement secure operating systems in the 1980s the united states department of defense dod used the orange book and several military jets secure coding secure coding in software engineering secure coding aims to guard against the accidental introduction of security vulnerabilities it is also possible to create software designed from the ground up to be secure such systems are secure by design beyond this formal verification aims to prove the correctness of the algorithms underlying a system important for cryptographic protocols for example capabilities and access control lists access control list and capability computers within computer systems two of many security models capable of enforcing privilege separation are access control lists acls and capabilitybased security using acls to confine programs has been proven to be insecure in many situations such as if the host computer can be tricked into indirectly allowing restricted file access an issue known as the confused deputy problem it has also been shown that the promise of acls of giving access to an object to only one person can never be guaranteed in practice both of these problems are resolved by capabilities this does not mean practical flaws exist in all aclbased systems but only that the designers of certain utilities must take responsibility to ensure that they do not introduce flaws capabilities have been mostly restricted to research operating systems while commercial oss still use acls capabilities can however also be implemented at the language level leading to a style of programming that is essentially a refinement of standard objectoriented design an open source project in the area is the e language end user security training the enduser is widely recognized as the weakest link in the security chain among the most commonly recorded forms of errors and misjudgment are poor password management the inability to recognize misleading urls and to identify fake websites and dangerous email attachments as the human component of cyber risk is particularly relevant in determining the global cyber risk in reducing cyber risk and protecting individuals and companies from the great majority of cyber threats the focus on the enduser represents a profound cultural change for many security practitioners who have traditionally approached cybersecurity exclusively from a technical perspective and moves along the lines suggested by major security centers to develop a culture of cyber awareness within the organization recognizing that a security aware user provides an important line of defense against cyber attacks response to breaches responding forcefully to attempted security breaches in the manner that one would for attempted physical security breaches is often very difficult for a variety of reasons identifying attackers is difficult as they are often in a different jurisdiction to the systems they attempt to breach and operate through proxies temporary anonymous dialup accounts wireless connections and other anonymizing procedures which make backtracing difficult and are often located in yet another jurisdiction if they successfully breach security they are often able to delete logs to cover their tracks the sheer number of attempted attacks is so large that organisations cannot spend time pursuing each attacker a typical home user with a permanent eg cable modem connection will be attacked at least several times per day so more attractive targets could be presumed to see many more note however that most of the sheer bulk of these attacks are made by automated vulnerability scanners and computer worms law enforcement officers are often unfamiliar with information technology and so lack the skills and interest in pursuing attackers there are also budgetary constraints it has been argued that the high cost of technology such as dna testing and improved forensics mean less money for other kinds of law enforcement so the overall rate of criminals not getting dealt with goes up as the cost of the technology increases in addition the identification of attackers across a network may require logs from various points in the network and in many countries the release of these records to law enforcement with the exception of being voluntarily surrendered by a network administrator or a system administrator requires a search warrant and depending on the circumstances the legal proceedings required can be drawn out to the point where the records are either regularly destroyed or the information is no longer relevant the united states government spends the largest amount of money every year on cyber security the united states has a yearly budget of 28 billion dollars canada has the 2nd highest annual budget at 1 billion dollars australia has the third highest budget with only 70 million dollars types of security and privacy access control antikeyloggers antimalware antispyware antisubversion software antitamper software antivirus software cryptographic software computeraided dispatch cad firewall intrusion detection system ids intrusion prevention system ips log management software records management sandbox security information management siem antitheft parental control software and operating system updating notable attacks and breaches further information list of cyberattacks and list of data breaches some illustrative examples of different types of computer security breaches are given below robert morris and the first computer worm morris worm in 1988 only 60000 computers were connected to the internet and most were mainframes minicomputers and professional workstations on 2 november 1988 many started to slow down because they were running a malicious code that demanded processor time and that spread itself to other computers the first internet computer worm rome laboratory in 1994 over a hundred intrusions were made by unidentified crackers into the rome laboratory the us air forces main command and research facility using trojan horses hackers were able to obtain unrestricted access to romes networking systems and remove traces of their activities the intruders were able to obtain classified files such as air tasking order systems data and furthermore able to penetrate connected networks of national aeronautics and space administrations goddard space flight center wrightpatterson air force base some defense contractors and other private sector organizations by posing as a trusted rome center user tjx customer credit card details in early 2007 american apparel and home goods company tjx announced that it was the victim of an unauthorized computer systems intrusion stuxnet attack the computer worm known as stuxnet reportedly ruined almost onefifth of irans nuclear centrifuges although neither has publicly admitted this global surveillance disclosures global surveillance disclosures 2013present in early 2013 documents provided by edward snowden were published by the washington post and the guardian target and home depot breaches in 2013 and 2014 a russianukrainian hacking ring known as rescator broke into target corporation computers in 2013 stealing roughly 40 million credit cards warnings were delivered at both corporations but ignored physical security breaches using self checkout machines are believed to have played a large role the malware utilized is absolutely unsophisticated and uninteresting says jim walter director of threat intelligence operations at security technology company mcafee meaning that the heists could have easily been stopped by existing antivirus software had administrators responded to the warnings the size of the thefts has resulted in major attention from state and federal united states authorities and the investigation is ongoing office of personnel management data breach in april 2015 the office of personnel management discovered it had been hacked more than a year earlier in a data breach resulting in the theft of approximately 215 million personnel records handled by the office ashley madison breach ashley madison data breach in july 2015 a hacker group known as the impact team successfully breached the extramarital relationship website ashley madison the group claimed that they had taken not only company data but user data as well after the breach the impact team dumped emails from the companys ceo to prove their point and threatened to dump customer data unless the website was taken down permanently with this initial data release the group stated avid life media has been instructed to take ashley madison and established men offline permanently in all forms or we will release all customer records including profiles with all the customers secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions real names and addresses and employee documents and emails the other websites may stay online when avid life media the parent company that created the ashley madison website did not take the site offline the impact group released two more compressed files one 97gb and the second 20gb after the second data dump avid life media ceo noel biderman resigned but the website remained functional legal issues and global regulation conflict of laws in cyberspace has become a major cause of concern for computer security community some of the main challenges and complaints about the antivirus industry are the lack of global web regulations a global base of common rules to judge and eventually punish cyber crimes and cyber criminals there is no global cyber law and cyber security treaty that can be invoked for enforcing global cyber security issues international legal issues of cyber attacks are complicated in nature even if an antivirus firm locates the cybercriminal behind the creation of a particular virus or piece of malware or form of cyber attack often the local authorities cannot take action due to lack of laws under which to prosecute authorship attribution for cyber crimes and cyber attacks is a major problem for all law enforcement agencies computer viruses switch from one country to another from one jurisdiction to another moving around the world using the fact that we dont have the capability to globally police operations like this so the internet is as if someone use of dynamic dns fast flux and bullet proof servers have added own complexities to this situation role of government the role of the government is to make regulations to force companies and organizations to protect their systems infrastructure and information from any cyberattacks but also to protect its own national infrastructure such as the national powergrid governments regulatory role in cyberspace is complicated for some cyberspace was seen virtual space that was to remain free of government intervention as can be seen in many of todays libertarian blockchain and bitcoin discussions many government officials and experts think that the government should do more and that there is a crucial need for improved regulation mainly due to the failure of the private sector to solve efficiently the cybersecurity problem r clarke said during a panel discussion at the rsa security conference in san francisco he believes that the industry only responds when you threaten regulation if the industry doesnt respond to the threat you have to follow through on the other hand executives from the private sector agree that improvements are necessary but think that the government intervention would affect their ability to innovate efficiently daniel r mccarthy analyzed this publicprivate partnership in cybersecurity and reflected on the role of cybersecurity in the broader constitution of political order international actions many different teams and organisations exist including the forum of incident response and security teams first is the global association of csirts the council of europe helps protect societies worldwide from the threat of cybercrime through the convention on cybercrime the purpose of the messaging antiabuse working group maawg is to bring the messaging industry together to work collaboratively and to successfully address the various forms of messaging abuse such as spam viruses denialofservice attacks and other messaging exploitations enisa the european network and information security agency enisa is an agency of the european union with the objective to improve network and information security in the european union europe on 14 april 2016 the european parliament and council of the european union adopted the general data protection regulation gdpr eu 2016679 gdpr which became enforceable beginning 25 may 2018 provides for data protection and privacy for all individuals within the european union eu and the european economic area eea gdpr requires that business processes that handle personal data be built with data protection by design and by default gdpr also requires that certain organizations appoint a data protection officer dpo national actions computer emergency response teams computer emergency response team most countries have their own computer emergency response team to protect network security canada on 3 october 2010 public safety canada unveiled canadas cyber security strategy following a speech from the throne commitment to boost the security of canadian cyberspace public safety canadas canadian cyber incident response centre ccirc is responsible for mitigating and responding to threats to canadas critical infrastructure and cyber systems the ccirc provides support to mitigate cyber threats technical support to respond and recover from targeted cyber attacks and provides online tools for members of canadas critical infrastructure sectors on 27 september 2010 public safety canada partnered with stopthinkconnect a coalition of nonprofit private sector and government organizations dedicated to informing the general public on how to protect themselves online china chinas central leading group for internet security and informatization chinese was established on 27 february 2014 this leading small group lsg of the communist party of china is headed by general secretary xi jinping himself and is staffed with relevant party and state decisionmakers the lsg was created to overcome the incoherent policies and overlapping responsibilities that characterized chinas former cyberspace decisionmaking mechanisms the lsg oversees policymaking in the economic political cultural social and military fields as they relate to network security and it strategy this lsg also coordinates major policy initiatives in the international arena that promote norms and standards favored by the chinese government and that emphasize the principle of national sovereignty in cyberspace germany berlin starts national cyber defense initiative on 16 june 2011 the german minister for home affairs officially opened the new german ncaz national center for cyber defense nationales cyberabwehrzentrum located in bonn the ncaz closely cooperates with bsi federal office for information security bundesamt fr sicherheit in der informationstechnik bka federal police organisation bundeskriminalamt deutschland bnd federal intelligence service bundesnachrichtendienst mad military intelligence service amt fr den militrischen abschirmdienst and other national organisations in germany taking care of national security aspects according to the minister the primary task of the new organization founded on 23 february 2011 is to detect and prevent attacks against the national infrastructure and mentioned incidents like stuxnet india some provisions for cyber security have been incorporated into rules framed under the information technology act 2000 the national cyber security policy 2013 is a policy framework by ministry of electronics and information technology meity which aims to protect the public and private infrastructure from cyber attacks and safeguard information such as personal information of web users financial and banking information and sovereign data cert in is the nodal agency which monitors the cyber threats in the country the post of national cyber security coordinator has also been created in the prime ministers office pmo the indian companies act 2013 has also introduced cyber law and cyber security obligations on the part of indian directors some provisions for cyber security have been incorporated into rules framed under the information technology act 2000 update in 2013 south korea following cyber attacks in the first half of 2013 when the government news media television station and bank websites were compromised the national government committed to the training of 5000 new cybersecurity experts by 2017 the south korean government blamed its northern counterpart for these attacks as well as incidents that occurred in 2009 2011 united states legislation the 1986 18 usc1030 more commonly known as the computer fraud and abuse act is the key legislation it prohibits unauthorized access or damage of protected computers as defined in 18 usc1030e2 although various other measures have been proposed such as the cybersecurity act of 2010 s 773 in 2009 the international cybercrime reporting and cooperation act hr4962 in 2010 none of these has succeeded executive order 13636 improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity was signed 12 february 2013 standardized government testing services the general services administration gsa has standardized the penetration test service as a prevetted support service to rapidly address potential vulnerabilities and stop adversaries before they impact us federal state and local governments these services are commonly referred to as highly adaptive cybersecurity services hacs and are listed at the us gsa advantage websitepsee more information here enetration teststandardized government penetration test services agencies the department of homeland security has a dedicated division responsible for the response system risk management program and requirements for cybersecurity in the united states called the national cyber security division the third priority of the federal bureau of investigation fbi is to protect the united states against cyberbased attacks and hightechnology crimes in addition to its own specific duties the fbi participates alongside nonprofit organizations such as infragard in the criminal division of the united states department of justice operates a section called the computer crime and intellectual property section the ccips is in charge of investigating computer crime and intellectual property crime and is specialized in the search and seizure of digital evidence in computers and networks in 2017 ccips published a framework for a vulnerability disclosure program for online systems to help organizations clearly describe authorized vulnerability disclosure and discovery conduct thereby substantially reducing the likelihood that such described activities will result in a civil or criminal violation of law under the computer fraud and abuse act 18 usc 1030 the united states cyber command also known as uscybercom is tasked with the defense of specified department of defense information networks and ensures the security integrity and governance of government and military it infrastructure and assets the us federal communications commissions role in cybersecurity is to strengthen the protection of critical communications infrastructure to assist in maintaining the reliability of networks during disasters to aid in swift recovery after and to ensure that first responders have access to effective communications services the food and drug administration has issued guidance for medical devices computer emergency readiness team computer emergency response team is a name given to expert groups that handle computer security incidents in the us two distinct organization exist although they do work closely together uscert part of the national cyber security division of the united states department of homeland security certcc created by the defense advanced research projects agency darpa and run by the software engineering institute sei modern warfare cyberwarfare there is growing concern that cyberspace will become the next theater of warfare as mark clayton from the christian science monitor described in an article titled the new cyber arms race in the future wars will not just be fought by soldiers with guns or with planes that drop bombs they will also be fought with the click of a mouse a half a world away that unleashes carefully weaponized computer programs that disrupt or destroy critical industries like utilities transportation communications and energy such attacks could also disable military networks that control the movement of troops the path of jet fighters the command and control of warships this has led to new terms such as cyberwarfare and cyberterrorism the united states cyber command was created in 2009 and many other countries have similar forces careers cybersecurity is a fastgrowing field of it concerned with reducing organizations risk of hack or data breach typical cyber security job titles and descriptions include security analyst analyzes and assesses vulnerabilities in the infrastructure software hardware networks investigates using available tools and countermeasures to remedy the detected vulnerabilities and recommends solutions and best practices analyzes and assesses damage to the datainfrastructure as a result of security incidents examines available recovery tools and processes and recommends solutions tests for compliance with security policies and procedures may assist in the creation implementation or management of security solutions security engineer performs security monitoring security and datalogs analysis and forensic analysis to detect security incidents and mounts the incident response investigates and utilizes new technologies and processes to enhance security capabilities and implement improvements may also review code or perform other security engineering methodologies security architect designs a security system or major components of a security system and may head a security design team building a new security system security administrator installs and manages organizationwide security systems may also take on some of the tasks of a security analyst in smaller organizations chief information security officer ciso a highlevel management position responsible for the entire information security divisionstaff the position may include handson technical work chief security officer cso a highlevel management position responsible for the entire security divisionstaff a newer position now deemed needed as security risks grow security consultantspecialistintelligence broad titles that encompass any one or all of the other roles or titles tasked with protecting computers networks software data or information systems against viruses worms spyware malware intrusion detection unauthorized access denialofservice attacks and an ever increasing list of attacks by hackers acting as individuals or as part of organized crime or foreign governments student programs are also available to people interested in beginning a career in cybersecurity in the united kingdom a nationwide set of cyber security forums known as the uk cyber security forum were established supported by the governments cyber security strategy identified by the uk government terminology the following terms used with regards to computer security are explained below access authorization restricts access to a computer to a group of users through the use of authentication systems these systems can protect either the whole computer such as through an interactive login screen or individual services such as a ftp server there are many methods for identifying and authenticating users such as passwords identification cards smart cards and biometric systems antivirus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software malware applications are executable code so general practice is to disallow users the power to install them to install only those which are known to be reputable and to reduce the attack surface by installing as few as possible they are typically run with least privilege with a robust process in place to identify test and install any released security patches or updates for them authentication techniques can be used to ensure that communication endpoints are who they say they are automated theorem proving and other verification tools can enable critical algorithms and code used in secure systems to be mathematically proven to meet their specifications backups are one or more copies kept of important computer files typically multiple copies will be kept at different locations so that if a copy is stolen or damaged other copies will still exist capability and access control list techniques can be used to ensure privilege separation and mandatory access control capabilities vs acls discusses their use chain of trust techniques can be used to attempt to ensure that all software loaded has been certified as authentic by the systems designers confidentiality is the nondisclosure of information except to another authorized person cryptographic techniques can be used to defend data in transit between systems reducing the probability that data exchanged between systems can be intercepted or modified cyberwarfare is an internetbased conflict that involves politically motivated attacks on information and information systems such attacks can for example disable official websites and networks disrupt or disable essential services steal or alter classified data and cripple financial systems data integrity is the accuracy and consistency of stored data indicated by an absence of any alteration in data between two updates of a data record cryptographic techniques involve transforming information scrambling it so it becomes unreadable during transmission the intended recipient can unscramble the message ideally eavesdroppers cannot encryption is used to protect the confidentiality of a message cryptographically secure ciphers are designed to make any practical attempt of breaking them infeasible symmetrickey ciphers are suitable for bulk encryption using shared keys and publickey encryption using digital certificates can provide a practical solution for the problem of securely communicating when no key is shared in advance endpoint security software aids networks in preventing malware infection and data theft at network entry points made vulnerable by the prevalence of potentially infected devices such as laptops mobile devices and usb drives firewalls serve as a gatekeeper system between networks allowing only traffic that matches defined rules they often include detailed logging and may include intrusion detection and intrusion prevention features they are nearuniversal between company local area networks and the internet but can also be used internally to impose traffic rules between networks if network segmentation is configured a hacker is someone who seeks to breach defenses and exploit weaknesses in a computer system or network honey pots are computers that are intentionally left vulnerable to attack by crackers they can be used to catch crackers and to identify their techniques intrusiondetection systems are devices or software applications that monitor networks or systems for malicious activity or policy violations a microkernel is an approach to operating system design which has only the nearminimum amount of code running at the most privileged level and runs other elements of the operating system such as device drivers protocol stacks and file systems in the safer less privileged user space pinging the standard ping application can be used to test if an ip address is in use if it is attackers may then try a port scan to detect which services are exposed a port scan is used to probe an ip address for open ports with the purpose of identifying accessible network services social engineering is the use of deception to manipulate individuals to breach security scholars ross j anderson annie anton adam back daniel j bernstein matt blaze stefan brands l jean camp lance cottrell lorrie cranor dorothy e denning peter j denning cynthia dwork deborah estrin joan feigenbaum ian goldberg shafi goldwasser lawrence a gordon peter gutmann paul kocher monica s lam butler lampson brian lamacchia carl landwehr kevin mitnick peter g neumann susan nycum roger r schell bruce schneier dawn song gene spafford salvatore j stolfo willis ware moti yung attack tree bicycle attack captcha cloud computing security common criteria comparison of antivirus software computer security model content disarm reconstruction content security countermeasure computer cybercrime cyberinsurance cyber security standards cyber selfdefense dancing pigs data security disk encryption exploit computer security fault tolerance hardware security humancomputer interaction security identity management identity theft identitybased security information security awareness internet privacy internet security it risk kill chain list of computer security certifications open security outline of computer security owasp penetration test physical information security privacy software proactive cyber defence sandbox computer security separation of protection and security software defined perimeter costigan sean hennessy michael 2016 cybersecurity a generic reference curriculum nato isbn9789284501960 httpswwwnatointnatostaticfl2014assetspdfpdf201610201610251610cybersecuritycurriculumpdf montagnani maria lill and cavallo mirta antonella cybersecurity and liability in a big data world july 26 2018 available at ssrn httpsssrncomabstract3220475 wu chwanhwa john irwin j david 2013 introduction to computer networks and cybersecurity boca raton crc press isbn9781466572133 lee newton 2015 counterterrorism and cybersecurity total information awareness 2nd ed springer isbn9783319172439 singer p w friedman allan 2014 cybersecurity and cyberwar what everyone needs to know oxford university press isbn9780199918119 kim peter 2014 the hacker playbook practical guide to penetration testing seattle createspace independent publishing platform isbn9781494932633 wikimedia commons has media related to computer security computer security at curlie cybersecurity websites vtemajor fields of computer sciencenote this template roughly follows the 2012 acm computing classification systemhardware printed circuit board peripheral integrated circuit very large scale integration systems on chip socs energy consumption green computing electronic design automation hardware acceleration computer systemsorganization computer architecture embedded system realtime computing dependability networks network architecture network protocol network components network scheduler network performance evaluation network service software organization interpreter middleware virtual machine operating system software quality software notationsand tools programming paradigm programming language compiler domainspecific language modeling language software framework integrated development environment software configuration management software library software repository software development software development process requirements analysis software design software construction software deployment software maintenance programming team opensource model theory of computation model of computation formal language automata theory computational complexity theory logic semantics algorithms algorithm design analysis of algorithms algorithmic efficiency randomized algorithm computational geometry mathematicsof computing discrete mathematics probability statistics mathematical software information theory mathematical analysis numerical analysis informationsystems database management system information storage systems enterprise information system social information systems geographic information system decision support system process control system multimedia information system data mining digital library computing platform digital marketing world wide web information retrieval security cryptography formal methods security services intrusion detection system hardware security network security information security application security humancomputerinteraction interaction design social computing ubiquitous computing visualization accessibility concurrency concurrent computing parallel computing distributed computing multithreading multiprocessing artificialintelligence natural language processing knowledge representation and reasoning computer vision automated planning and scheduling search methodology control method philosophy of artificial intelligence distributed artificial intelligence machine learning supervised learning unsupervised learning reinforcement learning 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