Sometimes, the most dangerous attacks arent blatant attempts to take you down in one fell swoop.
These passive attacks are designed to monitor your activity and sometimes steal personal data but never alter your data.
What Is a Passive Attack?
Passive attacks generally do not interfere with your systems running, nor do they alter the systems resources.
In a passive attack, what is targeted is the confidentiality of messages or information exchanged.
This concept is referred to asvulnerability assessment.
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Other than this, other uses of passive attacks are often malicious.
Passive attacks are the cyber version of surveillance, secretly exploring an area to get information.
It can be in the form of either passive or active reconnaissance.
This may involveport scanningto find open ports that an external body can prey upon.
Many port scanning, web connection mapping, andpenetration testing applicationsmake active reconnaissance possible.
Examples includeOpenVAS,Nmap, andMetasploit.
Image Credit: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock
Active reconnaissance communicates directly with a system or connection to glean information, leaving trails.
Imagine the intruder in passive reconnaissance watching the movements in a house by just peeking through the window.
If patient enough, the intruder will see quite a bit but can not see everywhere from that position.
Passive reconnaissance is hardly detectable but requires more time to be spent without the promise of comprehensive data collection.
How Does a Passive Attack Work?
Applications and recon programs are often employed to conduct thisdata breach.
It is also referred to as access point mapping.
Leading social media companies useend-to-end encryptionto protect their users calls and messages and combat eavesdropping.
In spying, the plan is to discover information to have the edge over competitors or for blackmail.
Solid firewalls with several layers of encryption should be able to keep stubborn cyber spies out of your business.
The attacker monitors data traffic without interfering in the exchange process.
Encryption works wonders in keeping sniffers out.
Footprinting
Footprinting, also known as fingerprinting, is part of active reconnaissance.
It involves searching for details concerning a connection or system to pinpoint its exploitable points.
Digital footprint includes data trails you leave behind after surfing the web, for instance, yourIP address.
This information can be used to search for even more details that will expose your networks weak points.
Traffic Analysis
Traffic analysis involves looking over a great deal of exchanged information to determine a communication pattern.
This helps the hacker to gather information about the users of that web connection.
Even when messages are encrypted, the frequency of message exchange can still be monitored.
It can be difficult to pinpoint when advanced applications, likeWireshark, are used.
What Is the Difference Between Active and Passive Attacks?
In an active attack, nothing is off-limits.
In a passive attack, information gathering without engaging the system is the aim.
Passive attacks are harder to spot as a result; they do not alter the system in any way.
Be proactive about your cybersecurity.
Dont be passive about passiveor any other form ofattacks!
