In this week’s written assignment you will relate the cyberattack on HBGary Federal to some of the terminology introduced in the first two modules.

Like most written assignments, this must be submitted as a PDF file. If you choose to include the questions to your answer sheet, please highlight your answers, that makes it so much easier to grade!

Question 1. (8 points) Types of vulnerabilities/exploits.

a. Identify one step in the attack on HBGary Federal that exploited an unpatched manufacturer vulnerability in commonly used software. (Hint: I believe there is only one exploit in the entire attack that fits this category, this will likely be the hardest one to find).

b. Identify one step in the attack that exploited a local vulnerability. This is the most common type of vulnerability exploited in the attack.

c. Identify one step in the attack that used social engineering.

Question 2. (3 points) Is the HGBary Federal attack best categorized as a “targeted” or “opportunistic” attack, and most importantly, why?

Question 3. (8 points) On page 70, the textbook suggests characterizing attacks according to the CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) triad. The attack on HBGary Federal had elements of all three types of attacks.

a. What part of the attack on HBGary Federal can be considered as a Confidentiality attack, and why?

b. What part of the attack on HBGary Federal can be considered as an Integrity attack, and why?

c. What part of the attack on HBGary Federal can be considered as an Availability attack, and why?

Question 4. (4 points) Like most cyberattacks, the attack on HBGary Federal did not consist of one single act, but a series of actions linked together. Here’s a list of eight actions that were taken by Anonymous during the attack.

A. Anonymous defaces the HBGary Federal website

B. Anonymous deletes backups and research data

C. Anonymous gains administrator access to HBGary’s Google App’s email system

D. Anonymous gains root access to a Linux computer, support.hbgary.com

E. Anonymous retrieves usernames, email addresses and hashed passwords of administrators for the HBGary Federal webserver

F. Anonymous takes over Aaron Barr’s twitter account

G. Anonymous tricks an administrator into giving them root access to the rootkit.com webserver

H. Anonymous is able to use hashed passwords to find plaintext passwords belonging to Aaron Barr and Ted Vera

Some of these events are dependent upon earlier events, for instance, Anonymous could not take over Aaron Barr’s twitter account without having already found his plaintext password. The purpose of these next three questions is to identify other dependencies among these events.

a. Among these eight actions, there is one that started everything else for anonymous, one action that all of the others were dependent upon. Which action is this, and why?

b. Actions C and G are closely related, and one of them had to have occurred before the other. Which one occurred first, and why?

c. Actions B and D are closely related, and one of them had to have occurred before the other. Which one occurred first, and why?

Like most written assignments, this must be submitted as a PDF file.

(2 points) Appropriate content

((((these are the website we can write about so you can choose from them))).

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/how-one-security-firm-tracked-anonymousand-paid-a-heavy-price/ (Links to an external site.)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/anonymous-speaks-the-inside-story-of-the-hbgary-hack/ (Links to an external site.)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/221504/8_security_tips_to_learn_from_the_hbgary_hack.html (Links to an external site.)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/the-ridiculous-plan-to-attack-wikileaks/ (Links to an external site.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/aaron-barr-cybersecurity-anonymous-occupy-wall-street_n_1219328.html (Links to an external site.)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/how-aaron-barr-correctly-identified-commander- (Links to an external site.)x/ (Links to an external site.)