Considering how much the whole society depends on computers and networks, break-

Question

Considering how much the whole society depends on computers and networks, break-ins into vital services we use (banking, food and water supplies, electricity, medical services, government, etc.) presents a clear and present danger to the whole society.

What do you need to do in thi assignment:

As we discussed, there are many cases of security breaches happening all the time. I want you to choose one of these cases and to write one page (minimum) research paper (Font size 10 single space).

Because you are CS student, I want you to find cases that involve significant technical software component and provide engineering-level explanation how it was done.

What was attacked

What was the goal of attack (destroy data, stole information, disable services, disrupt operations, etc.)

Who did it (criminals, terrorists, pranksters, ideologists, etc.)

How the attack was perpetrated - method, tools, techniques.

What were the results of the attack

How to do it:

To find information in general you can search Google for cases of serious cyber security breaches – there will be A LOT of links. For more specific search (if you are interested in a particular topic) you can narrow search by identifying the target such as:

State infrastructure (power grid, water and food supply, communications, etc.)

Government offices and services (White House attack or Social Security database)

Military (Pentagon attack, military communications, veterans database)

Air traffic (airports, planes)

Business (usually intrusions, Websites attacks)

Vocabulary (useful as keywords for Google search):

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity breaches

Hacking US infrastructure

Cyberattacks against big business

Hacking major companies

Government sponsored hacking

Explanation / Answer

Hackers have attempted more than a dozen cyber attacks against the Obamacare website, according to a top Homeland Security Department official. There have been more than a dozen attempts to attack the Healthcare.gov web site. As obama healthcare site consists a lot of personal information of the public, attackers always wanted to steal it. According to availbile information, criminals are targeting the obamacare website in order to crash it.

Through Pishing method cyber criminals wanted to load the obamacare server with sever load and wanted to crash it. It involves the method of overloading by means of replicating the server domain. When users wanted to login to the obama care site, they are redirected to the home page without logging. Due to this unaware users hit the site for number of times which loads the server. When the load breaches the threshold level obama care gets crashed. Attackers prepared this method and implemented by which server got loaded severely and did not worked for quite a time. Quick reaction from officials and by precautions this attack severity reduced.

Cyber security breaches are becoming more on government websites as it is considered to be one of the way to attack government by criminals and terrorists. Hiring ethical hackers and building efficients firewalls helps to protect the infrastructure of government websites.

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