Identifying Potential Malicious Attacks, Threats and Vulnerabilities
Networking Security Fundamentals – CIS 333
April 29, 2012

Identifying Potential Malicious Attacks, Threats and Vulnerabilities There are a myriad of potential threats and vulnerabilities that leave a system open to malicious attack, anytime you have a computer network that connects to the internet there is a potential for malicious attack so it is important that you know the vulnerabilities of a system to protect it from potential threats and malicious attacks. “A vulnerability is any weakness in a system that makes it possible for a threat to cause harm.” (Kim & Solomon, 2012, p. 96). There are several common vulnerabilities that exist within the seven domains of an IT infrastructure for example there is the lack of awareness or concern for security policy vulnerability in the User Domain as well as intentional malicious activity ( Kim & Solomon, 2012). Within the Workstation Domain there exists unauthorized user access, weakness in installed software, and malicious software introduced vulnerabilities, unauthorized network access, transmitting private data unencrypted, spreading malicious software, exposure and unauthorized access of internal resources to the public, introduction of malicious software, loss of productivity due to internet access, denial of service attacks, brute-force attacks on access and private data are all examples of vulnerabilities within the seven domains of IT infrastructure which are User, Workstation, LAN, LAN-to WAN, WAN, Remote Access, and System/Application Domains (Kim & Solomon, 2012). Threats can cause great harm or damage to computer systems through their vulnerabilities, there are many types of threats such as natural threats like floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and landslides, there is human threats like accidental or intentional