Comparative Analysis Of WannaCry And Petya Cyber-Attacks | Rampant Data Exposure – Report

Rampant Data Exposure Security Breach

Information Security is a group of processes that work over a system to maintain integrity, confidentiality and availability. The objective of this term is to make sure that confidential information is accessed only by valid user. The threats and vulnerabilities are increasing thus the need to information security is growing. In this report, the security breach of rampant data exposure is discussed and the second part covers the comparative study of both the cyber-attack that is wannacry and petya is discussed.

One of the security breaches of the year 2018 was rampant Data Exposure, which affected the security concerns of various corporate files. This section deals with the problem faced due to this attack, reason why it occurred and how it can be prevented.

The problem that was faced due to this attack is data exposure as the name suggests. It allows invalid user to access the information over the network. This usually occurs due to miss management of information or database (Lallie,  Debattista & Bal, 2018). The problem faced due to this attack was that it violated the privacy of more than 340 million records. This attack captured all the personal information of an individual. This attack was difficult to detect as the bugs were stored in the system in a different format (Clarke & Youngstein, 2017). The major problem was identifying that the bug has hit the system or not.

This attack occurred due to the misconfiguration of the network. The servers that stored backup reports were not secure enough. Thus, the entire networks were hacked which caused data breaching (Clarke & Youngstein, 2017). This attack occurred due to poor security of the entire public and private network.

This can be prevented that all the data is stored in an encrypted manner so that even if the data packets are hacked by some third party user it is not in a readable form. In this case, a list of access control is prospered so that only authorised access user is allowed to access the information. Apart from that, all the tools that are used by the share the information are discussed (Mattei, 2017). It is recommended that all the sensitive data and passwords are stored in the system by encrypting them so that there is no chance of data breaching.

In this two major cyber-attack, that is Wannacry and Petya are discussed.

Wannacry cyber-attack- This attack basically targeted the operating system of the computers, it became viral in 2017. The motive of this attack was to earn money in the form of bit coin by attacking the data and then encrypting it (Tuna,  Kogias, Gungor, Gezer, Ta?k?n & Ayday, 2017). This was possible by installing the black doors in the system.

• The problem with this attack is that it spreads at very high speed. It is easily transferrable from one PC to another. The problem with this attack is that virus enters the system through emails or websites through which downloading occurs (Shropshire,  Warkentin & Sharma, 2015). The access control to the information is also an issue as it allows unauthorised user to read the sensitive data.
• This attack attempted to capture all the confidential data of the companies that are serving health facilities. The scope was to steal the information and in return ask for money to release the data (Bernal, et. al,  2018). The health status of patients was captured in a short span of time that is around 6 hours.  This attack penetrates from one desktop to another. The scope of this violated the image of the company and also degraded the loyalty of customers (Tam, Wet. al, 2017). As the, confidential and sensitive data was leaked. Thus, the main objective of this attack was to discontinue the access of valid user and then ask of payment to release the data.
• Future discussing the details of the attack it was found that vulnerabilities and bugs are spread due to the phishing attacks in emails or by encrypting the important file so that valid user is not able to access the data (Trasande, 2017). To decrypt the file money was demanded from the valid user. The operational details suggest that the system that is infected by bugs should be isolated from the entire system. So, that bugs do not penetrate future in the system (Jin, Wu,  Zeng,  Jin,  Wu, Wang & Fu, 2016). It is recommended that to overcome from this issue, fake decryption files could be used so that original file could be claimed easily.
• WannaCry attack can be prevented easily by making sure that strong firewalls and antiviruses are used so that bugs can be detected at earliest phase. To make sure that, in case of failure system continues to work (Trasande, 2017). This can be by done by taking regular backups so that it can be restored. Creating a disaster recovery plan will help the organisation to be aware about all the security concerns.

Prevention of Data Exposure

Petya cyber-attack- Discussing the other major attack, that is petya cyber-attack. This malware captured the network in 2016. This system attacked on all the operating system of Microsoft. It didn’t allow computer to run their booting program as it encrypts all the hard drives file (Jin, Wu,  Zeng,  Jin,  Wu, Wang & Fu, 2016). This request also request for bit coin to give the permission to access the file.

• The issue faced due to this attack is, it infects the system by modifying the booting files so that system is not able to start. Due to this attack system keeps on restarting. The bit coin payment s asked to release the master files as they are encrypted by the hackers and disallow valid users to access the files (Jenic, 2016). Apart from this, it gives the permission to unauthorised user to access the information.
• The scope of this project is to disallow valid user to operate on their computer by making modification in their boosting program (Jenic, 2016). The scope is very large as it has impacted various firms in US and Europe. This bug degrades the working efficiency of the computer as it spreads internally over the network.
• While discussing this attack in more detail, it was found that it has majorly impacted the advertising firms and has actually disturbed the working processes of the computer.
• This attack can be prevented by making sure that no private processes runs if system shuts down on regular basis (Teitzel, 2016). The booting programs file should be stored in the system with the access control of read only mode. This assures that no modification can be done in the files.

If comparing both the attack it was found that in case of Wannacry attacks all the basic files are encrypted and in case of petya only important files are encrypted. In both the cases, the hackers ask for bit coins to release the original file (Teitzel, 2016).Wannacry is faster in comparison to petra attack in penetrating in the system or over the network.

Conclusion

One of the major security breaches that occurred in 2018 is rampant Data Exposures. It is a security issue that violated the confidential and privacy of personal information. It also allowed, unauthorised user to access the information. The problem, scope and prevention method of this security breach is discussed in the report above. From the second part, it can be concluded that wannacry attack is that it spreads at very high speed. It is transportable from one PC to another. This attack enters the system through emails or from false downloading sites. On the other hand, in petya attack the operating system is targeting of Microsoft computers. They didn’t allow computer to run their booting program as it encrypts all the hard drives file. Thus some of the prevention methods that can be used are discussed.

References

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Clarke, R., & Youngstein, T. (2017). Cyberattack on Britain’s National Health Service—a wake-up call for modern medicine. The New England journal of medicine, 377(5), 409-411.

Jenic. I. (2016). What’s the difference between WannaCry and Petya ransomware?. Retrieved from https://windowsreport.com/wannacry-vs-petya/.

Jin, Y., Wu, Y., Zeng, Z., Jin, C., Wu, S., Wang, Y., & Fu, Z. (2016). From the cover: Exposure to oral antibiotics induces gut microbiota dysbiosis associated with lipid metabolism dysfunction and low-grade inflammation in mice. Toxicological Sciences, 154(1), 140-152.

Lallie, H. S., Debattista, K., & Bal, J. (2018). An Empirical Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Attack Graphs and Fault Trees in Cyber-Attack Perception. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 13(5), 1110-1122.

Mattei, T. A. (2017). Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security of Health Care Information: Lessons from the Recent WannaCry Cyberattack. World neurosurgery, 104, 972-974.

Shropshire, J., Warkentin, M., & Sharma, S. (2015). Personality, attitudes, and intentions: Predicting initial adoption of information security behavior. Computers & Security, 49, 177-191.

Tam, W. H., Ma, R. C. W., Ozaki, R., Li, A. M., Chan, M. H. M., Yuen, L. Y., … & Chan, J. C. N. (2017). In utero exposure to maternal hyperglycemia increases childhood cardiometabolic risk in offspring. Diabetes Care, dc162397.

Teitzel. C. (2016). HOW TO PREVENT SENSITIVE DATA EXPOSURE. Retrieved from https://www.lockr.io/blog/how-prevent-sensitive-data-exposure.

Trasande, L. (2017). When enough data are not enough to enact policy: The failure to ban chlorpyrifos. PLoS biology, 15(12), e2003671.

Tuna, G., Kogias, D. G., Gungor, V. C., Gezer, C., Ta?k?n, E., & Ayday, E. (2017). A survey on information security threats and solutions for Machine to Machine (M2M) communications. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 109, 142-154.

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