Brute Force Attacks: Three Factors Of Protecting Digital Information

Passwords should be designed to prevent them from being discovered by unauthorized persons. All passwords should have at least eight (8) characters. The user-IS should never be used as the password. Words in dictionary, derivates of user-IDs, and common character sequences such as “123456789” should not be employed.

Data security has become a concern for every individual in our country. We hear about data loss from businesses like Target and University of Maryland at College Park and it is easy to wonder where the next security breach will be and whether it will affect us personally. This is intended as a look at the existing data security policies that receive the most public attention, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) (34 CFR) and Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 2000 (HIPAA) (45 CFR. 76 CFR)with a focus on how these statutes apply to database security and design. These regulations affect every American in some way since nearly every person has been either a student, the parent of a

Dr. Blahblah has implemented a system with an 8-bit random canary that is used to detect and prevent stacke-based buffer overflow attacks. Describe an effective attack against Dr. Blahblah’s system and analyse its likelihood of success.

When choosing a password, don't use names of any kind. Permutating them will not help. Avoid all dictionary words of any language and make your passwords long with multiple types of characters. You can generate a strong password by thinking of a long sentence (of at least 15 words) that's about a personal or made up

Corporations are also largely pushing back against this government debate for a backdoor. According to Peterson’s article in the Washington Post, many companies have experienced an increase in security breaches and attacks from criminals in recent years. As a consequence, many of them are working on incorporating harder encryption systems, some of which are designed in such a way that the company does not have access to the “digital keys” that are used to unlock this data. Due to these measures, Sanger and Perlroth found that “when companies like Apple and Facebook are issued court orders to help governments monitor their customers’ messages, all they can do is turn over a stream of unintelligible code.” Supporters of encryption, such as Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook, state that limiting this encryption would damage “customers’ confidence that the most precious data they keep in their phones is safe from garden variety cybercriminals as well as sophisticated nation states that could gain access to keys via hacking” (Sanger and Perlroth). Furthermore, Sanger and Perlroth spoke to a computer security expert named Matt Blaze at the University of Pennsylvania who mentioned that encryption itself is only particularly useful for hiding data and the contents of conversations. Blaze states that encryption does not hide the fact that two parties were in communication, nor does it protect that data when the devices used by the individuals are compromised, implying that encryption

In a Dictionary attack, large numbers of commonly used names and passwords found in the dictionary are tested to see if the account credentials could be revealed (Kak, 2015). Dictionary attack is most effective because account users don’t use a minimum of eight characters in length that contains at least an uppercase letter, lowercase letter, numbers and symbols (Harthun, 2016). Instead, account users use common dictionary words for password. According to Skyhigh Networks, “password” is number two among their top twenty most commonly used passwords (Coles, 2016). In fact, it is so common that it has been compromised 1.3% of the time (Coles, 2016). A Brute-Force attack is very time

The rise of online information storage has created new risks.so setting strong password is also important

Internet has changed and transformed lives of society and constructed line between virtual and non-virtual communities. People remained to live in virtual world so it encouraged to encounter more deviance. Juveniles are most familiar with the internet deviance because they are more likely to attach with digital technology. Due to frequent use of internet juveniles develop hacking behaviour which involve spreading virus, altering file, infiltrating software. In one study, hacking done by juveniles provided the predictor of hacking behaviour. To get better perspective of this behaviour there are two criminological theories

Weak passwords are responsible for 76% of data breaches (Keeper Security Whitepaper). Cyber criminals have become much more sophisticated in the past few years at breaking passwords. Two major types of “cracking” methods are used: brute force and dictionary attacks. Brute force is “a trial and error method used by application programs to decode data such as passwords or Data Encryption Standards keys, through exhaustive effort”, thus the term brute force. It is similar to a thief trying multiple combinations to “crack” a safe. Dictionary attacks use large dictionaries, sometimes containing millions of words, to defeat passwords. This technique has been enhanced by the number of accounts that have been compromised in the past few years.

With the increased use of technology, there are new dangers of stolen information. More patients check their records online with their home computers, tablets or cell phones. This data loss can result from the device itself being lost or stolen, third party apps siphoning off data, or by sharing files through public cloud services. The patients are accessing their records, scheduling their doctors’ appointments via text or app, and health care providers are wirelessly sharing data. The health care industry has to acclimate to these changes in accessing patient information and make sure that their mobile access is secure and HIPAA compliant. They also need to find new ways to protect patient data, no matter how the data is being accessed. Of course, there is always the possibility of user error and the patients being at fault for divulging their personal information. Health care companies have to make sure that their staff and their patients are aware of ways to prevent compromising their data. Professionals should be trained and aware that it is not ok for them to email any patients’ records with the possibility of the transmission not being encrypted or the destination not being HIPAA compliant. The staff has to be prepared for any malicious occurrences in to protect the company’s networks. Due to increase in social media and people telling their life stories over the wide web, the privacy factor has become a grey area. Making sure that an end user is informed not to open

Programming based security arrangements encode the information to keep information from being stolen. In any case, a malicious program or a hacker may degenerate the information with a specific end goal to make it unrecoverable or unusable. Likewise, encoded working frameworks can be adulterated by malware from a programmer, making the framework unusable. Equipment based security arrangements can avoid read and compose access to information and henceforth offers extremely solid insurance against altering and unapproved access.

Brute-force password cracking is also very important in computer security. It is used to check the weak passwords used in the system, network or application. Brute-force attack when an attacker uses a set of predefined values to attack a target and analyze the response until he succeeds. Success depends on the set of predefined values. If it is larger, it will

One of the most common flaws in a computer environment is that of password strength. This can be controlled through a minimum strength requirement as discussed later with the use of Active Directory (see: Additional – Network). In computer terms, password strength is evaluated as bits. As a general rule, the more bits a password contains, the longer it would take to break (Profis, 2012). According to the MSDN, the “… use of strong passwords can slow or defeat the various attack methods of compromising a [computer’s] security” (Microsoft Developer Network, 2006).

Have you ever wondered how to protect your digital information? Why not start with the computer(s) that we own. We buy, sell, exchange data from one part of the internet to another. Our personal data is all over the PC. Should we ask ourselves if our PC is protected enough, if using them is safe? At first glance, it starts with your operating system. Windows is common anywhere you go. When you buy a new computer, most likely, it will have Windows OS installed. There are other OS, such as Linux, which is, in a sense, more secure than Windows. Linux has more security than any other OS.

Passwords should not be dictionary words as it makes dictionary attacks easier. Passwords also should not contain personal information like first name, last name, date of birth, pets name, etc. as it makes brute force attack easier. Also, multiple sites should not have the same password. [3]