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Manmohan Sharma, Lovely Professional University Unit 2: Threats

Unit 2: Threats Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction

2.1 New Technologies Open Door Threats
2.2 Level of Threats Information Level and Network Level Threats
2.3 Threats and Attacks

2.3.1 Computer Viruses
2.3.2 Trojan Horses
2.3.3 Spam
2.3.4 Phishing
2.3.5 Password Attacks

2.3.6 Zombie Computers and Botnets
2.3.7 Denial-of-Service Attack (DoS)
2.4 Classification of Threats and Assessing Damages

2.5 Summary
2.6 Keywords
2.7 Review Questions
2.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

 Understand the concept of threats
 Discuss new technologies open door threats

 Recognize level of threats
 Explain threats and attacks
 Understand classification of threats and assessing damages

Introduction

Any person, act, or object that poses a danger to computer security is called a threat. Any kind of
policy, procedure, or action that recognizes, minimizes, or eliminates a threat or risk is called a
countermeasure.
Threat, is considered as constant. Any kind of asset that is not working optimally and is mission-
critical or essential to the organization, such as data that are not backed-up, is called a vulnerability,
while anything imperfect is called a weakness. Any kind of counter measure that becomes fairly
automated and meets the expectations of upper management is called a control, and there are
many types of controls in a computer security environment, as well as threats.

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