Question

. List 5 types of exploits from cybercrime and provide brief definition. (2.5 Marks)

Answer 1

In cyber security, an exploit is a way attackers take advantage of certain vulnerabilities and gain malicious access to systems. There are very many types of exploits that exist in the cyber security world. However, I will mention those ones most commonly used.

DoS attacks – The denial of service attacks is very common. Hackers will gain access to servers and send so many packet requests at the same time. The servers become overwhelmed due to too much memory allocation and the huge amount of traffic ends up crashing the servers.

Unauthorized access – When an attacker has an illegal access to host machines

Application Exploitation

Code injection – This exploit can be used to maliciously inject invalid code into an application program or software and as a result change how the program behaves.

Cross-site scripting – Enable hackers inject malicious scripts on a website of a client. Once they have gained access, they will escalate their privileges and have more access to the site.

Clickjacking – A type of attack that tricks unknown victims into clicking links of a web page they believe are legitimate and end up revealing confidential information of themselves.