What was the problem?
Gmail users were the main target in this attack, which was done in a sophisticated phishing scam that was seeking to gain the overall access of the account of the user with the help of a third party application. The attack was designed and propagated in such a ways that to the common user it would have been very difficult to judge the attack and prevent them from the scam (Paté?Cornell et al., 2017). The email was made is such a way that it looked like they were from a trusted contact of the user. The main notification that was circulated in the mail was a Google Doc file. The overall aspect of the attack was to encrypt the files and in order to decrypt the files random was asked. It had affected some of the very critical areas the effect as well as the after affect was considered as a huge mess in the history of cyber-attacks.
The main target of the attack was the user of the Gmail account and its related services. People now a day are very much familiar with the concept of the internet and when it comes to mail related aspect the Gmail prospective is very much playing a vital role. The user of the Gmail is affected when they receive a mail from the attacker about sharing a Google doc files application which would be helpful in managing the account of the user. If the user falls into the trip it would gain access of the account and on the other hand the list of people in the contact list of the user would also be affected in the process and would be indirectly affected by the protocol.
As stated earlier the main target of the attack was the Gmail user. The attack was a sophisticated phishing scam with the main intention of gaining access of the account of the user. The main access point of the attack was that the user received a mail from the intended attacker. The mail was constructed in such a way that the user would automatically think of it being authenticated mail and get involved in the attack. The mail comprised and notified the user that they want to share a Google Doc file with them. Ones the user clicked the link which is provided to them it led them to Google security real page where the user was prompted to allow a fake Google Doc application. This application was not intended to manage the account (Gmail account) of the user (Liang et ., 2017). Actually it was not actually a Google Doc file requesting access: it was a rogue web application with the name which was same, if green light was given by the unsuspecting marks, and then it would directly ransack the contact list and send out more spams like this. One more affect was that one’s permission was given to the access the software would immediately spam out the same message to all the people in the contact list bypassing the two factor authentication if the user had set that in the respective accounts.
In this scenario it can be stated that attackers can be distinguished into two categories as
The active attacker’s role is to get the information of the user and use them in context of something which can be beneficial for the attackers.
The passive attacker’s role is also to get the information of the user but without altering the information.
Active attackers can be detected because it is usually accompanied with change or alteration of the information but on the other hand passive attackers are very much difficult to detect because they hardly change any information, they just receive the information and use them for their personal benefit (Ryder, 2016).
In this case the attackers are the Active attackers who can be detected easily if the user. If a particular use has fallen in the trap there are steps that can be used in order to prevent the attack.
The user has to go the Google permission account page and ideally remove all the access privileges for the evil Google Doc account (Marsh, 2017). On the other hand it does not appear at this point that there can be a malware payload included with the message received by the user but it can be considered that there are chances of having it. What can be made clear is that this message is spreading like a wildfire and the attackers are going to harvest a list of account in order to procure a future attack. Google has implemented few updates on the system through safe browsing and the team which is involved in controlling such abuse is still working in order to prevent such attacks in the near future. Fake pages are also removed in order to decrease the risk of the attack (Alazab & Broadhurst, 2017).
In order to protect the users Google has implemented a protection scheme through a combination of automatic and manual section including removing the fake applications and pages (Ryder, 2016). The company was able to stop the campaign in within an hour or so. With regards to the user, the user does not have to take any more action regarding the event; the main aspect of the event was the third party application still if the user wants to use the third party application they can have access to them by visiting Google Security Checkup (Khosla & Dubey, 2016).
What was the problem?
WannaCry is mainly a global cyber-attack which was mainly initiated in order to target the computer system which mainly runs on window based operating system. However the numbers of casualties were less related to Windows 7. This was mainly a virus. The main intention of the attack was that the virus would encrypt all the files and other information in the computer system and then it would directly ask for ransom in order to decrypt the files in the computer system (Morehouse et al., 2017). The ransom was asked in the form of Bit coin Crypto currency. It was estimated that the virus had infected in more than 230000 computers all over the world in nearly 150 countries across the globe. The virus had also affected some of the most notable organizations across the globe. According to the web security researchers it was found that the process could have been slowed down by registering a domain name, which can be founded out from inside the code of the virus. The virus was considered to be a network worm which had the ability to transport itself and it mainly used EthernalBlue exploit in the window system to gain the access over it. The files which were encrypted with the virus usually displayed a random note from the creator demanding Bitcoin random. Microsoft created security patches for the entire window version in the market and some emergency security patches were released the next day of the attack for the computer running on window 7 and window 8 (Nayak, Mishra & Ram, 2016).
The victims of the attack range were huge. The hospitals were the most critical victims of the case. In a number of hospitals the radiology machines broadcasted the wannaCry massage and in many hospitals there were delay in surgery procedures, cancellation of appointment and a huge mess was created in this field. FedEx a package delivery company had stated that they had to delay the delivery of their packages due to the attack (Babu & Sasankar, 2017). The virus also affected the telecom providers, interior ministry and the Russian railways system. There was no count on how many systems were attacked and how much damage was made in the scenario. In some cases the attack just made some impact just as in the case of Hitachi, it was stated that the attack was from a virus but the causalities were kept at a minimum range which could not produce too much of harm in respect to the organization (Komar et al., 2016). Media online a company which deals with the digital display in Singapore shopping mall was also one of the victims of the WannaCry attack. The affect of the attack was that the kiosks in the two mall which was under their operation starting showing the ransom pop up window. This is very awkward from the point of view of the company because it was directly effecting the impression of the company with regards to the attack that took the entire globe into a confusing scenario.
The attack was initiated by a European by opening a compressed zip file. The attack needed some modification before it can be produced over the network and the harm can be produced. There were many steps involved in the process in order to procure into the network system of the internet (Michael, 2017). The command in the coding ordered the virus to create a contact with a website. On the other hand the link was inaccessible because there were no such code but it went unnoticeable for a few hours. This helped it to gain time to infect all the other computing system through the help of the network. After the rooting scheme it instructed the system code to check the file sharing of the computer system. In order to know the system in-depth it used a preprocessed tool named EthernalBlue (Nayak, Mishra & Ram, 2016).This software was stolen from the National Security Agency of the United States and as result of which it was leaked online and its result was affecting many areas. With the use of the software EthernalBlue the virus exploited the loophole in the coding of the window operating system (Renaud, 2017).
In order to safe a system from such a virus there can be many steps. The operating system should be kept updated all the time with the installation of the most recent security patches. The window update option should be kept on all the time. A ransomware blocker should be kept active all the time in the window operating system since the window operating system are mostly the victims in this case. The 445 port should be blocked if the operating system has not been installed in the system (Pei et al., 2016).
There can be many advantages that can be included in the field of internet access but on the other hand there can be many disadvantages as well. The user should be extra conscious about the fake aspect carried out over the internet which is merely used by the attackers in order to achieve their individual goals (Nayak, Mishra & Ram, 2016). The individual company is implementing much security aspect in every sphere of internet technology so that the user can be free from any threat like activity.
References
Alazab, M., & Broadhurst, R. (2017). An Analysis of the Nature of Spam as Cybercrime. In Cyber-Physical Security (pp. 251-266). Springer International Publishing.
Khosla, P., & Dubey, P. (2016). Survey Paper on Cyber Crime: A Threat to National Security. IITM Journal of Management and IT, 7(1), 62-65.
Liang, G., Weller, S. R., Zhao, J., Luo, F., & Dong, Z. Y. (2017). The 2015 ukraine blackout: Implications for false data injection attacks. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 32(4), 3317-3318.
Marsh, D. (2017). Are Ethical Hackers the Best Solution for Combating the Growing World of Cyber-Crime? (Doctoral dissertation, University Honors College, Middle Tennessee State University).
Paté?Cornell, M., Kuypers, M., Smith, M., & Keller, P. (2017). Cyber Risk Management for Critical Infrastructure: A Risk Analysis Model and Three Case Studies. Risk Analysis.
Ryder, N. (2016). Cyber crime and terrorist financing.
Babu, C. M., & Sasankar, A. B. (2017). Intrusion Detection Systems for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks. International Journal, 5(5).
Komar, M., Sachenko, A., Kochan, V., & Skumin, T. (2016, April). Increasing the resistance of computer systems towards virus attacks. In Electronics and Nanotechnology (ELNANO), 2016 IEEE 36th International Conference on (pp. 388-390). IEEE.
Michael, D. (2017). Virus Wanna Cry là gì và phòng tránh?| Michael Duy.
Morehouse, M. A., Lovecký, T., Read, H., & Woodman, M. (2017). Quantify? or, Wanna Cry? Integrating Methods Training in the IR Classroom. International Studies Perspectives, 18(2), 225-245.
Nayak, P. K., Mishra, D., & Ram, S. (2016). Attack of malicious objects in computer network under antivirus and quarantine defence. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 11(9), 6250-6253.
Pei, Y., Pei, H., Liang, X., & Zhu, M. (2016). Optimal control of a computer virus model with network attacks. Communications in Mathematical Biology and Neuroscience, 2016, Article-ID.
Renaud, K. (2017). It makes you Wanna Cry.
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