Datasheet

Book IV
Chapter 1
Network Security
Terminology
453
Identifying Types of Attacks
of the data, and there are a number of ways to ensure availability. For
example, you can do backups, use RAID volumes for storing your data, and
implement high-availability solutions such as clustering technologies (multiple
servers running the same application, or service, so if one server fails the
request for the service is sent to the second server).
Identifying Types of Attacks
Now that you are familiar with some basic network security terms, let’s talk
about some popular attacks against businesses today. These attacks may
sometimes seem far-fetched, but in reality, they happen every day! This
section outlines some of the most popular types of attacks that can happen
in today’s networking environments.
For the CCENT certification exam, it is critical that you are familiar with the
different types of attacks covered in this section. You are sure to get a few
questions about types of attacks.
To me, a hacker is someone with the technical expertise to bypass the
security of a network or a system. A hacker knows how to use features of a
piece of software or hardware to gain access to restricted areas of a network
and then use those features against you and your system. For example, an
e-commerce Web site connects to a product database behind the scenes so
that you can get a list of products when you visit the site. A hacker knows
how to input data into the site to manipulate the database server into
executing the code that the hacker wants to execute — and this happens
because the hacker understands the technologies used behind the scenes.
There are two major types of hackers:
✦ Black-hat hackers: Break into a system or network for malicious reasons
or for personal gain. The black-hat hacker could be looking for financial
gain, bragging rights, or revenge.
✦ White-hat hackers: Try to hack into software or hardware in order to
understand how to protect others from black-hat hackers. These are the
good guys.
Hackers use a number of different types of attacks to hack into a network,
device, or a system. Sometimes an attack lays the groundwork for a future
or different type of attack: That is, the initial attack does not seem all that
dangerous, but it is used in the future to gain unauthorized access.
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