John works as an Office Assistant in DataSoft Inc. He has received an e-mail from duesoft_lotterygroup@us.com with the following message: The DueSoft Lottery IncorporationThis is to inform you that you have just won a prize of $7,500.00 for this year's Annual Lottery promotion, which was organized by Msn/Yahoo Lottery in conjunction with DueSoft. We collect active online e- mails and select five people every year as our winners through an electronic balloting machine. Please reply within three days of receiving this e-mail with your full details like Name, Address, Sex, Occupation, Age, State, Telephone number, and Country to claim your prize. If John replies to this e- mail, which of the following attacks may he become vulnerable to?
- Salami attack
- Man-in-the-Middle attack
- DoS attack
- Phishing attack
Answer(s): D
Explanation:
Phishing is a type of scam that entices a user to disclose personal information such as social security number, bank account details, or credit card number. An example of phishing attack is a fraudulent e-mail that appears to come from a user's bank asking to change his online banking password.
When the user clicks the link available on the e-mail, it directs him to a phishing site which replicates the original bank site. The phishing site lures the user to provide his personal information.
Answer option B is incorrect. Man-in-the-middle attacks occur when an attacker successfully inserts an intermediary software or program between two communicating hosts. The intermediary software or program allows attackers to listen to and modify the communication packets passing between the two hosts. The software intercepts the communication packets and then sends the information to the receiving host. The receiving host responds to the software, presuming it to be the legitimate client.
Answer option A is incorrect.
A salami attack is a series of minor attacks that collectively result in a larger attack. Computers are ideally suited to automating this type of attack. It is a form of cybercrime usually used for the purpose of committing financial crimes. In this type of attack, cybercriminals steal money or resources a bit at a time from financial accounts on a computer.
Answer option C is incorrect.
A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack is mounted with the objective of causing a negative impact on the performance of a computer or network. It is also known as a network saturation attack or bandwidth consumption attack. Attackers perform DoS attacks by sending a large number of protocol packets to the network. The effects of a DoS attack are as follows: Saturates network resourcesDisrupts connections between two computers, thereby preventing communications between servicesDisrupts services to a specific computerCauses failure to access a Web siteResults in an increase in the amount of spamA Denial-of-Service attack is very common on the Internet because it is much easier to accomplish. Most of the DoS attacks rely on the weaknesses in the TCP/IP protocol.