Information about Exploit (computer Security)

An exploit is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that take advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerized). This frequently includes such things as gaining control of a computer system or allowing privilege escalation or a denial of service attack.

Classification

There are several methods of classifying exploits. The most common is by how the exploit contacts the vulnerable software. A 'remote exploit' works over a network and exploits the security vulnerability without any prior access to the vulnerable system. A 'local exploit' requires prior access to the vulnerable system and usually increases the privileges of the person running the exploit past those granted by the system administrator. Exploits against client applications also exist, usually consisting of modified servers that send an exploit if accessed with client application. Exploits against client applications may also require some interaction with the user and thus may be used in combination with social engineering method.

Another classification is by the action against vulnerable system: unauthorised data access, code execution, denial of service.

Many exploits are designed to provide superuser-level access to a computer system. However, it is also possible to use several exploits, first to gain low-level access, then to escalate privileges repeatedly until one reaches root.

Normally a single exploit can only take advantage of a specific software vulnerability. Often, when an exploit is published, the vulnerability is fixed through a patch and the exploit becomes obsolete for newer versions of the software. This is the reason why some blackhat hackers do not publish their exploits but keep them private to themselves or other malicious crackers. Such exploits are referred to as 'zero day exploits' and to obtain access to such exploits is the primary desire of unskilled malicious attackers, often nicknamed script kiddies.

Types

Exploits can be categorized by the type vulnerability they exploit or the method of exploitation. Some of the common types of exploits, or "attacks", are:

See also

External links

Computer software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, procedures and documentation that perform some task on a computer system. [1]
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A software bug (or just "bug") is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from behaving as intended (e.g., producing an incorrect result).
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glitch (Also known as "Bug") is a short-lived fault in a system. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human
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vulnerability refers to a weakness in a system allowing an attacker to violate the confidentiality, integrity, availability [i.e (C.I.A) NSTISSC's triangle], access control, consistency or audit mechanisms of the system or the data and applications it hosts.
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Privilege escalation is the act of exploiting a bug in an application to gain access to resources which normally would have been protected from an application or user. The result is that the application performs actions with a higher security context than intended by the
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A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users.
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A system administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin, is a person employed to maintain, and operate a computer system or network. System administrators may be members of an information technology department.
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A client is an application or system that accesses a (remote) service on another computer system known as a server by way of a network. The term was first applied to devices that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers
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Social engineering is a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.[1] While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or computer
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A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users.
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On many computer operating systems, superuser, or root, is the term used for the special user account that is controlled by the system administrator.

Many older operating systems on computers intended for personal and home use, including MS-DOS and Windows 9x, are not
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In computing, a patch is a small piece of software designed to update or fix problems with a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing bugs, replacing graphics and improving the usability or performance.
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A black hat is a person who compromises the security of a computer system without permission from an authorized party, typically with malicious intent. The term white hat is used for a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of computer systems, but is frequently no less
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In hacker culture, a script kiddie (occasionally script bunny, skidie, script kitty, script-running juvenile (SRJ), or similar) is a derogatory term used for an inexperienced malicious cracker who uses programs developed by others to attack
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buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is a programming error which may result in a memory access exception and program termination, or in the event of the user being malicious, a possible breach of system security.
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A heap overflow is another type of buffer overflow that occurs in the heap data area. Memory on the heap is dynamically allocated by the application at run-time and typically contains program data.
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stack buffer overflow occurs when a program accesses a memory address on the program's call stack outside of the intended data structure; usually a fixed length buffer.[1][2]
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In computer programming, an integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation attempts to create a numeric value that is larger than can be represented within the available storage space.
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A return-to-libc attack is a computer security attack usually starting with a buffer overflow, in which the return address on the stack is replaced by the address of another function, and the correct portion of the stack is overwritten to provide arguments to this function.
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Format string attacks are a class of software vulnerability discovered around 1999, previously thought harmless. Format string attacks can be used to crash a program or to execute harmful code.
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A race condition or race hazard is a flaw in a system or process whereby the output of the process is unexpectedly and critically dependent on the sequence or timing of other events.
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Code injection is a technique to introduce (or "inject") code into a computer program or system by taking advantage of the unenforced and unchecked assumptions the system makes about its inputs.
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SQL injection is a technique that exploits a security vulnerability occurring in the database layer of an application. The vulnerability is present when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not
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Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications which allow code injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users. Examples of such code include HTML code and client-side scripts.
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Cross-site request forgery, also known as one click attack or session riding and abbreviated as CSRF (Sea-Surf) or XSRF, is a kind of malicious exploit of websites.
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Computer security is a branch of information security applied to both theoretical and actual computer systems. Computer security is a branch of computer science that addresses enforcement of 'secure' behavior on the operation of computers.
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Many current computer systems have only limited security precautions in place.
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Crimeware is a class of computer program designed specifically to automate financial crime. The term was coined by Peter Cassidy, Secretary General of the Anti-Phishing Working Group to distinguish it from other kinds of malevolent programs.
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A shellcode is a relocatable piece of machine code used as the payload in the exploitation of a software bug. It is called "shellcode" because it typically starts a command shell from which the attacker can control the compromised machine.
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A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The original virus may modify the copies, or the copies may modify themselves, as occurs in a metamorphic virus.
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