IT VULNERABILITIES

IT Vulnerabilities



IT Vulnerabilities

Introduction

Cyber attacks have become a critical issue in today's advanced age of information technology. Various reasons motivate the hackers to make security breach or system intrusion attempts. This paper discusses the major cyber attacks and IT vulnerabilities, with the help of documented examples. The motivations behind each of the attacks and the punishments rewarded for each attacker are also discussed. The paper also includes a brief introduction of CVE database.

Cyber Attacks

Today we enjoy increased sophistication in computer and internet technologies, in terms of power, storage capacity and communication speed. The Internet has undoubtedly become essential for the world's economic competitiveness, innovation and well being. Though, advanced internet technologies have many advantages, However, the growth in technology also increases the opportunity of cyber crime. The network-based applications pose security risks to individuals and to the information resources of companies and governments.

Cyber attacks can be of various types, depending upon the nature of organization, data and the expertise of hacker himself. The most common cyber attacks can be classified as one of the following:

Cyber Fraud

Destructive attacks

Intellectual property theft

Denial of service

For developing a clear understanding about the IT vulnerabilities and the damages they can cause, it is essential to look at some real world cases. Next, we discuss the documented examples of each of the above vulnerabilities.

Cyber Fraud

Id theft is considered as the most dominant type of cyber theft. ID theft includes capturing information about personal assets, such as ID card, bank account details or email ID and passwords. The results may range from reading and responding to the emails from one's inbox, to stealing money from one's bank account.

As a documented example, we can consider the case of Jonathan Oliveras who was a 26 year old resident of NewYork. He was found to be in possession of information about 2,300 credit card accounts. The thief was mainly interested for making fraudulent purchases using the stolen credit cards information (U.S. Department of Justice, 2011). Serious damages and critical losses took place for the organizations, as Oliveras succeeded in his attempt. He spent amount equal to $770,674 from the illegal use of stolen credit cards. As Oliveras spent over the limits of certain credit cards, he also availed the opportunities of getting gift items that worth $42,688. Finally, Oliveras was caught by one officer, and he had to face a penalty of amount $1,541,349 for the charge of wire fraud, while he also got a prison of 20 years for the charge of identity theft.

Destructive attacks

In cyber world, destructive attacks are considered to be those in which hacker intrudes into the system of the victim, aiming to steal some valuable or confidential information. Also, the hacker may control and access the victim's system remotely, to perform security breaches and illegal actions.

As a documented example, we can consider the case of Arabo who lived at New Jersey, and was engaged in a web based business that sold sports ...