Cybersecurity Threats Quiz

Study Notes

Brute Force: guessing a password by attempting every possible combination of characters and numbers
Trojan: hides its true nature and reveals its designed behavior only when activated
Virus: malware that replicates and propagates itself to multiple systems, attached to other executable programs
Worm: capable of activation and replication without being attached to an existing program
Advanced Fee Fraud: conducted via e-mail, recipient is due an exorbitant amount of money and needs only a small advance fee or personal banking information to facilitate the transfer

Vulnerability: weakness in an asset or its defensive control system(s)
Malware: designed to perform malicious or unwanted actions
Human Error or Failure: accidents, employee mistakes, and social engineering
Social Engineering: using social skills to convince people to reveal access credentials or other valuable information to an attacker

Packet Sniffer: software program or hardware appliance that can intercept, copy, and interpret network traffic
Man in the Middle: group of attacks whereby a person intercepts a communications stream and inserts himself in the conversation
Jailbreaking: escalating privileges to gain administrator-level or root access control over a smartphone operating system
Exploit: technique used to compromise a system

Cyberactivist: seeks to interfere with or disrupt systems to protest the operations, policies, or actions of an organization or government agency
Cyberwarfare: seeks to interfere with or disrupt systems to protest the operations, policies, or actions of an organization or government agency
Cyberterrorist: attacks systems to conduct terrorist activities via networks or Internet pathways
Software Piracy: unauthorized duplication, installation, or distribution of copyrighted computer software

Ethics: considers nature, criteria, sources, logic, and the validity of moral judgment
Laws: mandate or prohibit certain behavior and are enforced by the state
Asset: organizational resource that is being protected
Liabilities: entity’s legal obligation or responsibility

Strategic Planning: sets the long-term direction to be taken by the organization and each of its component parts
Operational Planning: organize the ongoing, day-to-day performance of tasks
Tactical Planning: focuses on short-term undertakings that will be completed within one or two years
Crisis Management: actions taken during and after a disaster
Disaster Recovery Planning: process of preparing an organization to handle a disaster and recover from it, whether the disaster is natural or man-made
Business Continuity Planning: reestablish or relocate critical business operations during a disaster that affects operations at the primary site

De facto standard: widely adopted or accepted by a public group rather than a formal standards organization
De jure standard: formally evaluated, approved, and ratified by a formal standards organization
Enterprise Information Security Policy (EISP): high-level information security policy that sets the strategic direction, scope, and tone for all of an organization’s security efforts