Word Notes

From the intrusion kill chain model, a program that provides command and control services for an attack campaign. While the first ever deployed RAT is unknown, one early example is Back Orifice made famous by the notorious hacktivist group called “The Cult of the Dead Cow,” or cDc, Back Orifice was written by the hacker, Sir Dystic AKA Josh Bookbinder and released to the public at DEFCON in 1998....

A social engineering scam where fraudsters spoof an email message from a trusted company officer that directs a staff member to transfer funds to an account controlled by the criminal.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A physical security access control device consisting of an enclosed hallway with interlocking doors on each end where both doors can’t be open at the same time. A person presents credentials to the entry doorway. If authorized, the entry door opens and the person walks into the mantrap. The man trap exit door will not open until the entry door closes. The person presents credentials to the exit do...

A word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters. For example, cracking a columnar transposition cipher by hand involves looking for anagrams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1. A wireless access point installed by employees in an office or data center environment as a convenience to connectivity without the consent or the knowledge of the network manager. 2. A wireless access point, sometimes called an Evil Twin, installed by a cyber adversary in or near an office or data center environment designed to bypass security controls, gain access, and/or surveil the network...

A subset of the internet where communications between two parties or client-server transactions are obscured from search engines and surveillance systems by layers of encryption. The U.S. Navy designed the original Darknet by developing The Onion Router network, or TOR, back in the 1990s. Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson deployed the first alpha implementation in 2002 with some initial funding...

From the intrusion kill chain model, the delivery of a “lure” to a potential victim by pretending to be some trustworthy person or organization in order to trick the victim into revealing sensitive information. According to Knowbe4, the word “phishing” first appeared in a Usenet newsgroup called AOHell in 1996 and some of the very first phishing attacks used AOL Instant Messenger to deliver fake m...

From the intrusion kill chain model, the first part of an exploitation technique where the hacker tricks their victims into revealing their login credentials. In the second part of the technique, hackers legitimately log into the targeted system and gain access to the underlying network with the same permissions as the victim. Hackers use this method 80% of the time compared to other ways to gain...

From the intrusion kill chain model, a malicious code delivery technique that allows hackers to send code of their choosing to their victim’s browser. XSS takes advantage of the fact that roughly 90% of web developers use the JavaScript scripting language to create dynamic content on their websites. Through various methods, hackers store their own malicious javascript code on unprotected websites....

An electro-mechanical device used to break Enigma-enciphered messages about enemy military operations during the Second World War. The first bombe–named Victory and designed by Alan Turning and Gordon Welchman– started code-breaking at Bletchley Park on 14 March 1940, a year after WWII began. By the end of the war, five years later, almost 2000, mostly women, sailors and airmen operated 211 bombe...

The process of evaluating the security of a system or network by simulating an attack on it. Sometimes called "ethical hacking" or white hat hacking. The phrase started to appear in U.S. military circles in the mid 1960s as time sharing computers became more necessary for daily operations. Computer security experts from Rand Corporation began describing computer compromises as “penetrations.” By t...

The art of convincing a person or persons to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests. Social engineering in some form or the other has been around since the beginning of time. The biblical story of Esau and Jacob might be considered one of the earliest written social engineering stories. As applied to cybersecurity, it usually involves hackers obtaining information illegitima...

A class of software-security-weakness-issues where independent researchers discover a software flaw before the owners of the code discover it. Zero-day, or 0-day in hacker slang, refers to the moment the race starts, on day zero, between network defenders who are trying to fix the flaw before hackers leverage it to cause damage. It is a race because on day zero, there is no known fix to the issue....

A network mapping tool that pings IP addresses looking for a response and can discover host names, open communications ports, operating system names and versions. Written and maintained by Gordon Lyon, a.k.a. Fyodor, it is a free and open source software application used by both system admins and hackers alike and has been a staple in the security community for well over two decades. CyberWire Glo...