Crimeware: Understanding New Attacks and Defenses (Paperback)

Description

“This book is the most current and comprehensive analysis of the state of Internet security threats right now. The review of current issues and predictions about problems years away are critical for truly understanding crimeware. Every concerned person should have a copy and use it for reference.”

—Garth Bruen, Project KnujOn Designer

 

There’s a new breed of online predators—serious criminals intent on stealing big bucks and top-secret information—and their weapons of choice are a dangerous array of tools called “crimeware.” With an ever-growing number of companies, organizations, and individuals turning to the Internet to get things done, there’s an urgent need to understand and prevent these online threats.

 

Crimeware: Understanding New Attacks and Defenses will help security professionals, technical managers, students, and researchers understand and prevent specific crimeware threats. This book guides you through the essential security principles, techniques, and countermeasures to keep you one step ahead of the criminals, regardless of evolving technology and tactics. Security experts Markus Jakobsson and Zulfikar Ramzan have brought together chapter contributors who are among the best and the brightest in the security industry. Together, they will help you understand how crimeware works, how to identify it, and how to prevent future attacks before your company’s valuable information falls into the wrong hands. In self-contained chapters that go into varying degrees of depth, the book provides a thorough overview of crimeware, including not only concepts prevalent in the wild, but also ideas that so far have only been seen inside the laboratory.

 

With this book, you will 

• Understand current and emerging security threats including rootkits, bot networks, spyware, adware, and click fraud
• Recognize the interaction between various crimeware threats
• Gain awareness of the social, political, and legal implications of these threats
• Learn valuable countermeasures to stop crimeware in its tracks, now and in the future
• Acquire insight into future security trends and threats, and create an effective defense plan

With contributions by Gary McGraw, Andrew Tanenbaum, Dave Cole, Oliver Friedrichs, Peter Ferrie, and others.

 

Table of Contents

Preface xvii

About the Authors xxi

 

Chapter 1: Overview of Crimeware 1

1.1 Introduction 2

1.2 Prevalence of Crimeware 4

1.3 Crimeware Threat Model and Taxonomy 5

1.4 A Crimeware Menagerie 8

1.5 Crimeware Distribution 19

1.6 Infection and Compromise Points, Chokepoints, and Countermeasures 25

1.7 Crimeware Installation 29

1.8 Crimeware Usage 31

1.9 Organizing Principles for the Remainder of This Text 35

 

Chapter 2: A Taxonomy of Coding Errors 37

2.1 The Trinity of Trouble 38

2.2 The Seven Pernicious Kingdoms 40

2.3 The Phyla 46

2.4 More Phyla Needed 52

 

Chapter 3: Crimeware and Peer-to-Peer Networks 55

3.1 Malware in Peer-to-Peer Networks 55

3.2 Human-Propagated Crimeware 76

 

Chapter 4: Crimeware in Small Devices 83

4.1 Propagation Through USB Drives 83

4.2 Radio Frequency ID Crimeware 89

4.3 Mobile Crimeware 99

 

Chapter 5: Crimeware in Firmware 103

5.1 Propagation by Firmware Updates 103

5.2 Modeling WiFi Malware Epidemics 130

 

Chapter 6: Crimeware in the Browser 155

6.1 Transaction Generators: Rootkits for the Web 155

6.2 Drive-By Pharming 160

6.3 Using JavaScript to Commit Click Fraud 167

 

Chapter 7: Bot Networks 183

7.1 Introduction 183

7.2 Network-Oriented Features of Botnets 188

7.3 Software Features of Bots 205

7.4 Web Bots and the General Future of Botnets 215

7.5 Countermeasures 224

 

Chapter 8: Rootkits 229

8.1 Introduction 229

8.2 Evolution of Rootkits 231

8.3 User-Mode Windows Rootkits 233

8.4 Kernel-Mode Rootkit Techniques 240

8.5 Linux Rootkits 260

8.6 BIOS Rootkits 264

8.7 PCI Rootkits 265

8.8 Virtual Machine—Based Rootkits 267

8.9 Rootkit Defense 271

 

Chapter 9: Virtual Worlds and Fraud 275

9.1 Introduction 275

9.2 MMOGs as a Domain for Fraud 278

9.3 Electronic Fraud 283

9.4 Fraud in MMOGs 285

 

Chapter 10: Cybercrime and Politics 293

10.1 Domain Name Abuse 295

10.2 Campaign-Targeted Phishing 307

10.2.1 Profit-Motivated Phishing 307

10.3 Malicious Code and Security Risks 312

10.4 Denial-of-Service Attacks 315

10.5 Cognitive Election Hacking 316

10.6 Public Voter Information Sources: FEC Databases 319

10.7 Intercepting Voice Communications 320

 

Chapter 11: Online Advertising Fraud 325

11.1 History 325

11.2 Revenue Models 326

11.3 Types of Spam 332

11.4 Forms of Attack 335

11.5 Countermeasures 342

11.6 Click Fraud Auditing 347

11.7 The Economics of Click Fraud 352

 

Chapter 12: Crimeware Business Models 355

12.1 The Crimeware Business 355

12.2 A Closer Look at Adware 386

 

Chapter 13: The Educational Aspect of Security 397

13.1 Why Education? 397

13.2 Case Study: A Cartoon Approach 408

 

Chapter 14: Surreptitious Code and the Law 413

14.1 Introduction 413

14.2 The Characteristics of Surreptitious Code 415

14.3 Primary Applicable Laws 418

14.4 Secondary Applicable Laws 430

 

Chapter 15: Crimeware and Trusted Computing 457

15.1 Introduction 457

15.2 Anatomy of an Attack 458

15.3 Combating Crimeware with Trusted Computing 460

15.4 Case Studies 466

 

Chapter 16: Technical Defense Techniques 473

16.1 Case Study: Defense-in-Depth Against Spyware 475

16.2 Crimeware-Resistant Authentication 484

16.3 Virtual Machines as a Crimeware Defense Mechanism 510

 

Chapter 17: The Future of Crimeware 515

17.1 Crimeware, Terrorware, Vandalware, and Ransomware 515

17.2 New Applications and Platforms 517

17.3 Using Social Networks to Bootstrap Attacks 520

17.4 New Use of the Internet: Controlling the Infrastructure 520

17.5 Moving Up the Stack 520

17.6 The Emergence of an E-Society: Are We Becoming More Vulnerable? 521

17.7 The Big Picture 522

 

References 525

Index 557