Procedures for Detecting Cybercrime Activities on Websites
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Editura SITECH Craiova, România Aleea Teatrului, nr. 2, Bloc T1, parter Tel/fax: 0251/414003 E-mail: [email protected] ISBN 978-606-11-6119-5 2 ABSTRACT The research “Procedures for Detecting Cybercrime Activities on Websites” aims to analyze the procedures for detecting the cybercrime activities on the websites compromised by cybercriminals. The research intends to emphasize the importance of cyberspace security and to propose methods to mitigate the cyber-attacks effects. The specific objectives of the research are identification and classification of websites vulnerabilities, analysis of cyber-attacks evolution and structure, identification of best practices for cyber-attacks prevention and mitigation, improving methods for monitoring websites security, identifying methods for alerting websites owners in case of detection of intrusion or infection with malware, and enhancing cooperation between institutions involved in cyberspace security by providing procedures for preventing cyber-attacks and mitigating their effects. The actuality of this research is determined by developing a study on the cybercrime activities on compromised websites for improving cyber-attacks detection capability and defining procedures for monitoring the cyberspace security. The added value of the research is given by the strategies analysis for remote monitoring of the websites security and the alerting methods of the administrators in case of detection of cybercrime activities, leading to a better protection of the cyber infrastructures and the maintenance of a secure cyberspace. 3 The research website, necessary for the visibility and the promotion of the results, is hosted on web-scan.eu domain. The purpose of this platform is to promote the procedures for detecting cybercrime activities on websites. Keywords: cybercrime, cyber-attacks, cybersecurity, cyberspace, website scanner 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ...................................... 8 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 11 1.1. Objectives of the research ................................................................... 11 1.2. The background to the research .......................................................... 11 1.3. Structure of the research report ........................................................... 14 CHAPTER II THE STUDY OF CYBER-ATTACKS ....................................................... 17 2.1. Evolution of cyber-attacks .................................................................. 17 2.2. Classification of cyber-attacks ............................................................ 19 2.3. Structure of cyber-attacks ................................................................... 23 2.3.1. The Cyber Kill Chain intrusion model ....................................... 23 2.3.2. Cyber-attacks analysis ................................................................ 25 2.3.3. Study of cyber-attack vectors ..................................................... 32 2.4. Methods to prevent cyber-attacks ....................................................... 35 2.5. Conclusions ......................................................................................... 37 5 CHAPTER III MONITORING WEBSITES SECURITY .................................................. 39 3.1. Developing an attack tree .................................................................... 39 3.1.1. The structure of an attack tree ..................................................... 40 3.1.2. Developing an attack tree for websites ....................................... 42 3.2. Analysis of the impact of cyber-attacks .............................................. 46 3.2.1. Vulnerabilities of websites .......................................................... 46 3.2.2. Impact of cyber-attacks on the websites ..................................... 49 3.3. Monitoring websites security .............................................................. 51 3.3.1. Intrusion detection ...................................................................... 51 3.3.2. Malware detection ....................................................................... 54 3.3.3. Suspicious activities detection .................................................... 55 3.4. Methods to alert the platform administrators ...................................... 61 3.5. Conclusions ......................................................................................... 62 CHAPTER IV DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH WEBSITE .......................................... 64 4.1. The website aims and objectives ......................................................... 64 4.2. The website structure .......................................................................... 65 4.3. Integration of the monitoring procedures into an app ........................ 66 4.4. Conclusions ......................................................................................... 71 6 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................ 73 5.1. The main issues presented in the research .......................................... 73 5.2. Original contributions to the research ................................................. 75 5.3. Methods of data collection and analysis ............................................. 75 5.4. Perspectives for further development ................................................. 77 REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 79 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS A AES – Advanced Encryption Standard API – Application Programming Interface APT – Advanced Persistent Threats C CERT-RO – Romanian National Computer Incident Response Team CSRF – Cross-Site Request Forgery D DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service DNS – Domain Name System DoS – Denial of Service H HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language I ICMP – Internet Control Message Protocol IDS – Intrusion Detection System IP – Internet Protocol IRC – Internet Relay Chat 8 L LDAP – Lightweight Directory Access Protocol M MAC – Media Access Controller MBR – Master Boot Record O OWASP – Open Web Application Security Project P PDF – Portable Document Format PHP – Hypertext Preprocessor PSK – Pre-Shared Key R RAISA – Romanian Association for Information Security Assurance RDoS – Ransom Denial of Service RAM – Random Access Memory S SHA2 – Secure Hash Algorithm 2 SMS – Short Message Service SQL – Structured Query Language SQLi – SQL Injection SSID – Service Set Identifier T TCP – Transmission Control Protocol 9 U UDP – User Datagram Protocol URL – Uniform Resource Locator USB – Universal Serial Bus W WAF – Web Application Firewall WPA2 – Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 X XPath – XML Path Language XSS – Cross Site Scripting 10 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. Objectives of the research The research project “Procedures for Detecting Cybercrime Activities on Websites” aims to detect the cybercrime activities on websites compromised by cyber criminals. The research intends to emphasize the importance of online environment safety and to propose procedures to mitigate the cyber-attacks effects in the cyberspace. The specific objectives of the project are: - Identification and classification of computer vulnerabilities; - Analysis of cyber-attacks evolution and structure; - Identification of good practices on cyber-attacks prevention and mitigation; - Improving methods for monitoring websites security; - Identifying methods of alerting websites owners in case of detection of intrusion or infection with malware; - Enhancing cooperation between institutions involved in cyberspace security by providing procedures for preventing cyber-attacks and mitigate their effects. 1.2. The background to the research The online environment, which is in a continuous process of evolution, is generating both solutions for the development of the information society, as well 11 as risks related to its activities. The computer vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cyber criminals, makes cybersecurity a major concern. From this perspective, at the national level, steps have been taken to adopt new policies on the fight against the phenomenon of computer-related. In Romania, The Cybersecurity Strategy1 was adopted in 2013 in order to define and maintain a secure virtual environment, with a high degree of safety and reliability. This Strategy proposes regulatory and institutional framework to the dynamics of environmental threats, the establishment and application of minimal security requirements for national information infrastructures, ensuring their resilience and the development of cooperation at national and international levels. Implementation of the Romanian Cybersecurity