Taxonomy of Various Attacks

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to describe the various attacks used to gain unauthorized, and often illegal, access to computers. These attacks can occur remotely through computer networks and also through actual physical access. The chapter begins by describing the motives behind the attacks and gives some publicly available statistics which indicate the frequency of the attacks. It then describes a number of vulnerabilities that in general allow attackers unauthorized access to computers. Finally it describes vulnerabilities in the Internet Protocol suite that gives attackers many opportunities for a malicious attack on Internet connected computers. The reader should be aware that new attacks are appearing every day, and therefore the reader is referred to [39] for information on the most recent attacks.