Cyber Warfare Cyber Attacks

Cyber warfare, a term defined by Clarke (2010) as an action of a nation-state to effectively penetrate another nation's computer resources or networks for the sole purpose of causing malicious damage or even disruption is a major cause of national and global security concerns (p.6).In this paper, we identify some cyber warfare tools (either Attack, Defense, Exploitation), and write a scenario to execute the tools. We also identify if the tool is for UNIX or Windows hacks, Router Attacks, etc. Also identified is why you would want to use the tool as opposed to another tool which may conduct the same form, via comparison and contrast.

Cyber warfare tools

These are the tools that are used in carrying out cyber warfare activities. They may either be attack tools, defense tools as well as exploitation tools.

Exploitation tools

Vulnerability exploitation tools are the tools that are used for gathering information on a given network. These tools are used for assessing the vulnerability points in a give network. They include but not limited the following. Nessus, Metasploit, Core Impact, SQLMap, Social Engineer Toolkit, sqlininja, BeEF, dradis and WebGoa among others (SecTools,2012).In this category, we are going to discuss Nessus.

Nessus is noted by Tenable (2012a) to be the most widely used/deployed vulnerability as well as configuration assessment product having more that over 5 million downloads. The software features several features like high-speed discovery, asset profiling, configuration auditing, sensitive data discovery, and vulnerability analysis as well as patch management integration of a given system. The product can be used for checking credentials in both Unix and Windows systems (Tenable,2012b).

Merits

This tool is better than Metasploit, Core Impact, SQLMap, Social Engineer Toolkit, sqlininja, BeEF, dradis and WebGoa due to its high level of accuracy, functionality, versatility (Unix and Windows based) as well as its integrated nature.

Attack tools

Attack tools are the cyber warfare tools that are used for the attack of a nation state's computing resources. They include Hydra GTK, MetaSploit, AirSnort, Cain & Abel and Ethereal among others. In this section we are going to discuss MetaSploit.

MetaSploit

This exploitation tool is part of the MetaSpoit project, a widely known collection of security tools that were launched in 2003 by HD Moore (Andress & Winterfeld,2011).This attack tool comes in the form of MetaSploit Framework . The Framework is what is used in attacking a given system. The framework works by collecting information about a given network using scanning and vulnerability assessment tools like Nessus and nmap. The framework then selects a given exploit which matches the given system on the basis of the collected information. The Framework then selects a given payload to accompany the given exploit (usually a shell). The exploit and the payload are then executed by the framework (Andress & Winterfeld,2011,p.102).

The MetaSploit Framework is compatible with Windows, Linux and Unix systems

Merits

The MetaSploit framework appears to be far more superior to the rest of the attack tools since it has more functionality like network scanning, exploitation, smart brute forcing, social engineering as well as VPN and proxy pivoting with a stealth functionality that allows for a deeper penetration and attack of the target network.

Defense