Tech Byte™

e. Perhaps an adf . ly link and he could be earning easy money. Thus the attacker is “hijacking” clicks that are not meant for the actual page, but for a page where the attacker wants you to be.
Another example, using a carefully crafted combination of stylesheets, iframes, and text boxes, a user can be led the user to believe they are typing in the password for their bank account, but are actually typing into an invisible frame controlled by the attacker. The website might function normally for the unsuspecting user, but behind the scenes their vital information will be in the hands of the attacker.
DNS CACHE POISONING
DNS Cache Poisoning involves old cache data that you might think you no longer have on your computer, but is actually “toxic”. Also known as DNS Spoofing, hackers can identify vulnerabilities in a domain name system, which allows them to divert traffic from legit servers to a fake website and/or servers. This form of attack can be programmed to spread and replicate itself from one DNS server to another DNS, “poisoning” everything in it’s path.
In fact, in 2010, a DNS poisoning attack completely compromised the Great Firewall of China (GFC- Yes, it’s a thing) temporarily and censored certain content in the United States until the problem was fixed.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING ATTACKS
A social engineering attack is not technically a “hack”. When someone first finds out what exactly it is, they are surprised that it actually works. So was I, but indeed it does work.
It happens when you divulge private information in good faith, such as a credit card number, through common online interactions such as email, chat, social media sites, or virtually any website. The problem, of course, is that you’re not getting into what you think you’re getting into.
A classic example of a social engineering attack is the popular “Microsoft tech support” scam. This is when someone from a call center pretends to be a MS tech support member who says that your computer is slow and/or infected, and can be easily fixed – at a cost, of course. Considering that most computers are indeed quite slow and hang sometimes, this scam is quite well written. Of course, it need not be about money and most often it isn’t. Telling someone the name of your first pet might actually be giving them complete access to your account. Surprised? This is actually one of the most common security questions.
SYMLINKING – AN INSIDER ATTACK
A symlink (Symbolic Link) is basically a special file that “points to” a hard link on a mounted file system. A symlinking attack occurs when a hacker positions the symlink in such a way that the user or application that access the endpoint thinks they’re accessing the right file when they’re really not.(Read that again)
If the endpoint file is an output, the consequence of the symlink attack is that it could be modified instead of the file at the intended location. Modifications to the endpoint file could include appending, overwriting, corrupting, or even changing permissions.
Meaning, the user might be doing one thing, but another is actually happening. In different variations of a symlinking attack a hacker may be able to control the changes to a file, grant themselves advanced access, insert false information, expose sensitive information or corrupt and destroy vital system databases or application files.
CROSS SITE REQUEST FORGERY ATTACKS
A Cross Site Request Forgery Attack happens when a user is logged into a session (or account) and a hacker uses this opportunity to send them a forged HTTP request to collect their cookie information.
In most cases, the cookie remains valid as long as the user or the attacker stays logged into the account. This is why websites ask you to log out of your account when you’re finished and close the window after logging out – it will expire the session immediately.
In other cases, once the user’s browser session is compromised, the hacker can generate requests to the application that will not be able to differentiate between a valid user and a hacker. Another identity theft- the hacker confuses th

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