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Eva Simpson
Jul 26, 2022
Developers always try to build their software in a way that no hacker could discover any vulnerability. But what happens when hackers outrun developers? This is what a zero-day exploit is about. Let's learn more about this software vulnerability attack.
A zero-day vulnerability occurs when hackers manage to exploit a weak spot in a piece of software before developers find it and fix it. Zero-day means that cybercriminals notice a loophole earlier than developers, and the latter have zero days to patch it. If a hacker manages to exploit the vulnerability, it is called a zero-day attack.
The whole zero-day attack sequence can be described as follows:
The amount of time between hackers exploiting a vulnerability and users applying a patch is known as the window of vulnerability. The longer it is, the more time hackers have to cause damage.
Cybercriminals can exploit a wide range of vulnerabilities this way. It could be a lack of encryption, buffer overflow, various bugs, etc. Due to its varied nature, this attack is difficult to predict.
The damage caused by the attack depends on how fast the developer notices the exploit and releases a patch. But even after its release, not all users will upgrade the software simultaneously. Therefore, those users who haven’t immediately downloaded the patch will still be vulnerable.
Here are software vulnerabilities hackers tend to exploit the most often and the techniques they use:
In each client folder, you can have subfolders dedicated to invoices, presentations, contracts, offers, models, or any other relevant information.
To organize your files efficiently, you need to combine different types of file organization. You can assign a folder to your client, create subfolders for each year, and store different types of documents. The goal of file organization is you and your co-workers easily finding what you need. If you’re having a hard time navigating through folders and files, this means there’s still room for improvement.
Stuxnet is probably one of the world's most famous cyberattacks. It caused substantial damage to Iran's nuclear program. Stuxnet was malware that targeted machinery and industrial processes, including those responsible for uranium enrichment. The hackers spread it via an infected USB device. The malware bypassed network security and used rootkit to hide itself.
Heartbleed is a bug in the OpenSSL cryptography library, which is widely used in the TLS protocol. It employs the buffer over-read, an anomaly where a program overruns the buffer's boundary while reading data and reads the adjacent memory as a result. Even though developers fixed the bug at the beginning of April 2014, as of May 2020, 1.5% of 800,000 TLS-enabled websites were still vulnerable to the bug.
In 2011, cybercriminals breached the network belonging to RSA, an American network security company. Hackers exploited a loophole in Adobe Flash Player and spread malware by sending emails containing an infected Excel file to the company's employees. Then the malware used the player's vulnerability to install a backdoor onto a computer and take it over remotely. Hackers managed to steal important SecureID data used by RSA customers to assess the security risks.
While zero-day attacks can strike unpredictably and appear in many forms, there are a few mitigation methods you should seriously consider:
John Sears
Verified author
John believes that the best things in life are simple. He uses the same approach when he’s writing about online security. John says that his #1 pet peeve is phishing scams. Ironically, his favorite non-work related activity is fishing.
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