CYBER ATTACKS AND INFORMATION WARFARE ON SOCIAL …ijmtes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IJMTES040522.pdf · WARFARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Aniket Tare. 1 . 1 (Department of Computer Engineering,

IJMTES | International Journal of Modern Trends in Engineering and Science ISSN: 2348-3121

Paper Presented in: ‘2 day State Level workshop on Cyber Fest 17’, conducted by: ‘Department of Computer Engineering, Marathwada Mitra Mandal College of Engineering, Pune’ on 22-23 Feb 2017

CYBER ATTACKS AND INFORMATION WARFARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Aniket Tare1 1(Department of Computer Engineering, MIT College of Engineering, Pune, India, [email protected])

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Abstract— The acceptance of social networking sites is increasing day by day. Social networks provide many kinds of services and benefits to its users like helping them to connect with new people, share opinions with likeminded people, and stay in touch with old friends, relatives and colleagues. But due its popularity it is becoming soft target for the Intruders, Terrorists. In this paper we will discuss various types of cyber-attacks and challenges before social Network. we will also Discuss what kind of counter measures we can take to tackle cyber attacks

Keywords—Cyber Attack; Cyber Space; Social Network

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1. INTRODUCTION Ease of Use The rapid development of technology has dramatically changed the information environment in which we live. The opportunities provided by information technology allow anyone to film, edit, and share information, photos, and Micro-videos in real time, whether or not traditional media outlets report on the events. This gives everyone the opportunity to become an information player and potentially distribute messages to public of unlimited number and size around the world. The nature of mass communication has changed from being a ‘single authority speaking and many listening’ to a ‘many speak to many’ interaction, communication i.e. interactions between citizens who create the content themselves. Governments and traditional media are no longer the most important actors in the information space; they now have to compete for their place amid all the other actors. Certain features that characterize the new information environment should be mentioned

A. Accessibility Aggregating and sharing information is easy with modern devices such as smart phones and cameras that allow anyone to film, edit, and share information, almost in real time. Furthermore, these devices are relatively cheaper in the cost and mobile networks are well developed, even in regions where income levels are low, so there are few barriers to using this technology to share information

B. Speed Social media provides the capacity to spread information rapidly and in high volumes. Maximum effect can be achieved in a very short time. The new information environment is a contestable environment in which all actors compete to be heard. Any delay results in others telling your story for you.

C. ANONYMITY. Perceived Internet knowledge allows people to freely express opinions without taking responsibility.

Unknown users can manipulate audiences by fabricating visual and textual content, spreading fake information or attack other participants of online discussions with impunity.

D. High volumes of information exchanged daily The amount of information that is broadcast worldwide on a daily basis can be compared to a wide river made up of many small tributaries. Some of this data or information is essential and may even be critically important for a wide audience (GPS data, traffic information, government data etc.), while much of it may only be interesting for the close friends and relatives of the social media user. The amount of information or data we face every day makes it very difficult to track and differentiate between useful information and ‘noise’.

E. No geographic or content-related borders The data or information on social media has no geographic or content related border any post can reach the same number of people as a news article from a particular news organization. In this way, actors who would never get the opportunity to voice their opinions through traditional and conventional media outlets (e.g. minorities, radical groups, and extremists) can reach wide and huge audiences through social media and thus magnify and expand their capabilities

2. POSITIVE EFFECTS We can now encourage people to help one another and raise and collect funds for social causes, social awareness program, investigate crimes, and provide greater assistance to humanitarian disaster relief efforts. It has also increased the level of transparency within Governments, Government servants as well as the ability of the people to engage in the decision-making process, uncover lies and incorrect information, as well as find support for their ideas. Social media is a notable driver towards more open and direct dialogue among different social groups.

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3. NEGATIVE EFFECTS The straightforwardness and engagement that form the basic principles of social network. Which expose the Vulnerabilities of its users. Furthermore, the virtual environment is an unregulated environment in which anonymity gives more opportunities than ever to disseminate extreme views, deliberate false information, and create Hoaxes without revealing the person or organization behind the creation of the content.

A. Dangers of Social Networking Social networking sites provide Organizations with a mechanism for marketing online by using cloud computing, and other ways but they can also lead to serious consequences. Cyber enemies exploit the increased corporate use of cloud computing, social networking, and heavy use of Macs and smart phones for remote access. Cyber crime has moved from simple scams including phishing, spoofing, worms and viruses to more sophisticated and innovative attacks like shutting down network servers and cloud-based systems affecting companies and individuals. Social networking sites are more suitable for breeding cyber crime. With the massive growth of their popularity also has come equally large amount of malware. Shortened URLs are the main method used in attacking social networking sites and it is extremely difficult to identify the actual source of such attack as millions of people are logged onto the same website. Shortened URLs are used to broadcast news feed capabilities of popular social networking sites. The victims are easily tricked into injecting malware and phishing. Abbreviated URLs are the attacking strategy used for innocently share link to an E-Mail or webpage. Mass distributed attacks are achieved by logging onto a compromised account on the social networking site by posting the short URL linked or sharing any post to an infected website. Millions of unsuspecting victims get infected in a matter of minutes as the social networking site automatically distributes this link to the users’ friends in a multiplying spiral. All that the attacker has to do is to log on to a compromised social networking account and post a shortened link to a vulnerable website in the status area of the intended victim. Use of shortened URLs are not the only method to effect vulnerable links in news feeds, they definitely are the primary method of attack and responsible for bulk successes.

B. Terrorism and Social Networking The terrorists are increasingly using social networking sites to gather information and recruit people to join their cause. These social networks enable terrorist organizations to get personal with users, psychologically work on those inclined to the cause, and brainwash the educated and even affluent ones. Profiling of deliberate victims is being done by fooling them into accepting communication, even them luring into believing that they will discover who is secretly viewing their profile. Messages are sent from other social network users (victims) who have already fallen into the trap of clicking on the link and

following the scammers’ instructions. Children are more prone to fall into the trap and since they use and share social networking platforms and web pages with their friends and relatives, terrorist organizations and cyber attackers have a field day. Global terrorist organizations are able to recruit thousands of future terrorists in a matter of months through these social networking sites and it is well-nigh impossible for governments to keep tag of millions/thousands of daily users including those using smart phones. It is also not possible for any government to curb such communication or invade the privacy of individual users. While the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has been on for two years with patchy success, it has really not helped reduce radicalization. Cyberspace and in particular social networking has increased the pace of radicalization especially since no Global War on Cyber Terrorism (GWOCT) has been declared and not even international norms for cyberspace have been defined and affected. Therefore, one can be sure of rapid spread of radicalization resulting in expanding terrorism and cyber terrorism unless ways are found to monitor the bad guys, stop radicalization and deal with them before they strike.

4. TYPES OF ATTACKS Social media is always a soft target for the attacker ranging from account hijacking to impersonation attacks, scams, and new ways of distributing malware and executing phishing attacks.

A. Sophisticated Attacks It targets organizations of all sizes. For example, Microsoft was the victim of a series of social media hacks by nation-state threat actors. Because social media exists outside of the network circumference, social media threats can manifest long before network circumference and endpoint security detect malicious behavior. Detecting and reducing these threats requires a deep understanding of this new threat landscape. If we compare these tactics, methods techniques, and procedures to traditional network attack methods, we can draw some important conclusions from it.

B. Adversaries Attacks It target a corporate network using two phases: reconnaissance and exploitation. Reconnaissance involves foot printing (for example, gathering information about an organization’s IP address and domains), scanning (identifying what systems are using what IPs), and enumeration (identifying the services and ports available on these target systems). When intruders use social media, their approach is similar, but the methods of attack are quite different. In social media, targeting an organization and corporate network involves foot printing, monitoring and profiling, impersonating or hijacking, and, finally, attacking

C. Hijacking Attacks Hijacking an account is more difficult than impersonating it but gives quicker results if successful. The most effective social media attacks on an organization occur when an attacker is successful in finding a way to hijack an




account and use that for further infiltrate a network. Numerous social network data dumps have made account hijacking much easier

D. DOS & DDOS Attacks DOS attacks are a type of attacks initiated by individual or group of individuals exploiting aspects of the Internet Protocol to deny other users from legitimate access to systems and information. In the past DOS attacks has been Associated to SMURF attacks, recently though more forms of attacks are crafted to attack web servers, mail servers and other services. Destructive – Attacks which destroy the ability of the device to function, such as deleting or changing configuration information or power interruptions. DDOS on the other hand is a combination of DOS attacks staged or carried out in concert from various hosts to penalize the target host from further serving its function. DDOS is term coined when the source of the attack is not coming from a single source, but multiple source. DDOS cannot be eliminated with merely filtering the source IPs since it is often launched from multiple points installed with agents In 2016 Twitter, Sound Cloud, Spotify, Shopify, and other websites was inaccessible for a Day due to this Dos and DDos attacks

5. SOCIAL ENGINEERING In the cyber context this refers to the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. Cyber criminals often use social engineering to discover information necessary for system access, fraud, or other attacks. The aim of social engineering is to get people to disclose confidential information such as user names, passwords, points of entry, working hours, and so forth as the first step in penetrating a system. Traditional approaches to social engineering have included official- sounding telephone calls from so-called bank personnel or an intruder posing as an employee or system administrator, or even an official visitor using an employee’s phone to call technical support while the employee steps out of his or her office for a few minutes. The knowledge gained from this type of deception may very well bring an intruder much closer to gaining an initial access point into an information system or network

6. OTHER TYPES OF CYBER ATTACKS In the Cyber Space there are some other ways also use for attacking social media profiles on Twitter and Facebook they are as Follow

A. Viruses and Worms Viruses traditionally have targeted boot sectors (i.e., the startup portion of a computer disk) and executable files, and have hidden themselves in some very unlikely memory locations such as in the printer memory port. Like computers, viruses have evolved in capabilities. These

include the ability to conceal an infection by letting an executable program call the infected file from another location or by disabling the definition file (i.e., digital fingerprint used to detect a virus), by encrypting itself to prevent a discernible virus “signature,” and/or by changing its digital footprint each time it reproduces (i.e., polymorphism).Worms are a type of malicious software that does not need another file or program to replicate itself, and as such, is a self-sustaining and running program. The primary difference between viruses and worms is that a virus replicates on a host system while a worm replicates over a network using standard protocols (i.e., a type of mobile code). In this Type of attack attacker sends some links to the profile. if user downloads that link then The download gives the Virus creators access to a user’s password, often for email as well as Facebook and Twitter. This gives the attacker the ability to pretend to be their victim, potentially wringing more personal information out of their accounts. This is how the virus spreads

B. Trojans A Trojan horse is a malicious program that is intended to perform a legitimate function when it in fact also performs an unknown and/or unwanted activity. Many viruses and worms are delivered via a Trojan horse program to infect systems, install monitoring software such as keyboard loggers (i.e., a program that records every keystroke performed by a user) or backdoors to remotely take control of the system, and/or conduct destructive activities on the infiltrated system. It is very common for intruders to make available free software (i.e., games, utilities, hacking tools, etc.) that are in fact Trojan horses. In the commercial realm, it is also not unheard of to attach monitoring software (i.e., spyware) to a 30-day trial versions of “free” software that reports the activities of the user back to the manufacturer with the consent of the user when they agree to the terms and conditions when the software is first installed. The notification of the so-called intended monitoring is buried deep within such agreements. This spyware can also be monitored and hijacked by intruders to gather additional intelligence about a potential target, and in our opinion should be considered a Trojan horse regardless of the licensure agreement

7. COUNTER MEASURES TO CYBER WARFARE To protect installations against possible attacks, including terrorist attacks, we must define all the possible threats, estimate the potential losses resulting from the materialization of these threats, design a line of defense, and implement it. Cyber terrorism and information warfare are becoming new and important threats against information technology resources and must be a part of the overall planning, design, and implementation process aimed at providing overall protection. The most significant part of building an overall protection plan is founded in risk management analysis. It is feasible to secure all assets from all parties given highly restrictive access and unlimited resources. However, the real world must embrace a set of




priorities that has a rational foundation to deciding priorities and any subsequent decisions based on that rationale. This process is derived from a basic understanding that is easiest to explain by asking some simple questions such as:

• How important is it that our operations not be disrupted?

• How much is our proprietary and personal information worth to us and others?

• What will it cost to replace our systems and information?

• What are the consequences of not protecting our systems?

• How much are we willing to spend to protect our assets?

All of the above leads us to a conclusion that prior to launching the development of any security program, a thorough information technology risk analysis must be performed. It should be performed to justify the implementation of controls; provide assurance against unacceptable risk; assess compliance with regulations, laws, and corporate policy; and balance the controls of the risks. The outcomes of the risk analysis are then used to develop and implement organizational security programs, including issues related to countering cyber terrorist and cyberwarfare threats

8. CONCLUSION In this Digital age, Social Media is becoming Popular The number of social networking users is increasing day by day all over the world but the Growing use of social media will contribute to personal cyber threats in this paper we have Discussed some of the cyber threats .we discussed that how terrorists and attackers use different ways for targeting this social media network and we also discussed what type of counter measures we can take to oppose this kind of threats to social media REFERENCES

[1] Vulnerabilities in Social Networking Sites by Pratibha Jagnere published under 2nd IEEE International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Grid Computing, 2012

[2] “DoS and DDoS Attack’s Possibility Verification on Streaming Media Application” CHEN LeiSoftware School FUDAN University Shanghai, China YE Dejian* Software School FUDAN University Shanghai, China2008

[3] Ariely G. (2008) Knowledge management, terrorism, and cyber-terrorism. In Janczewski L Colarik A, eds.Cyberwarfare and cyber-terrorism. IGI Global, Hershey, PA: pp. 7–16.

[4] McDermott R. (2010) Decision making under uncertainty. Proceedings of a Workshop Deterring Cyberattacks: Informing Strategies and Developing Options for U.S. Policy

[5] "Social Engineering a General Approach" (PDF). Informatica Economica journal. Retrieved 11 Jan 2015.

[6] S. J. Yang, S. R. Byers, J. Holsopple, B. Argauer, and D. Fava, "Intrusion Activity Projection for Cyber Situational Awareness," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conferences on Intelligence and Security Informatics, Taipei, Taiwan, June 17-20, 2008.


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CYBER ATTACKS AND INFORMATION WARFARE ON SOCIAL …ijmtes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IJMTES040522.pdf · WARFARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Aniket Tare. 1 . 1 (Department of Computer Engineering,