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Network Defense and Coutnermeasures

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Submitted By sweetieaf
Words 1130
Pages 5
There are a variety of ways and innovative techniques used by attackers to exploit the weaknesses of the Internet. Some techniques are simple to construct while others are more complex and creative. Attack techniques are constructed to attack web servers, as well as, web browsers and email applications. Attackers mostly target web servers used for sensitive transactions, such as, banking e-commerce. Security holes may be found in the configurations of hardware and software commonly used, such as internet information ran by Windows. Attackers may use buffer overflow attacks or two types of SQL (Structured Query Language) injection attacks to access web servers. Buffer overflow is used to exploit vulnerabilities within software. Software customized for companies are more difficult to attack so they have less vulnerabilities. On the other hand, commercial software, webservers and databases are more susceptible to buffer attacks. Attackers discover poorly written code then inject malicious code causing buffer overflows. To discover any codes they must first access the code structure and find the weaknesses and errors located in the source code which is how buffer overflow attacks begin. The source code may be wrapped in a “black box” which provides protection from tampering, however, many attackers have the skills need to access the code nevertheless. There are different buffer attacks that can be used by attackers. A stack-smashing attack usually aims at the critical buffer component known as the stack. Stacks' memory is set to a certain size and stores information about the processes an application is running at that time. A buffer overflow happens when if the stack consumes all of the allocated space for it. In order for a an attacker to cause a buffer overflow, data is written larger size than the size allocated. Relational database management

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