Targeted Cyber Attacks: Multi-Staged Attacks Driven by Exploits and Malware

Cyber-crime increasingly impacts both the online and offline world, and targeted attacks play a significant role in disrupting services in both. Targeted attacks are those that are aimed at a particular individual, group, or type of site or service. Unlike worms and viruses that usually attack indiscriminately, targeted attacks involve intelligence-gathering and planning to a degree that drastically changes its profile.

Individuals, corporations, and even governments are facing new threats from targeted attacks. Targeted Cyber Attacks examines real-world examples of directed attacks and provides insight into what techniques and resources are used to stage these attacks so that you can counter them more effectively.

• A well-structured introduction into the world of targeted cyber-attacks
• Includes analysis of real-world attacks
• Written by cyber-security researchers and experts

About the Authors

Aditya K Sood (Ph.D) is a senior security researcher and consultant. Dr. Sood has research interests in malware automation and analysis, application security, secure software design and cybercrime. He has worked on a number of projects pertaining to penetration testing specializing in product/appliance security, networks, mobile and web applications while serving Fortune 500 clients for IOActive, KPMG and others. He is also a founder of SecNiche Security Labs, an independent web portal for sharing research with security community. He has authored several papers for various magazines and journals including IEEE, Elsevier, CrossTalk, ISACA, Virus Bulletin, Usenix and others. His work has been featured in several media outlets including Associated Press, Fox News, Guardian, Business Insider, CBC and others. He has been an active speaker at industry conferences and presented at DEFCON, HackInTheBox, BlackHat Arsenal, RSA, Virus Bulletin, OWASP and many others. Dr. Sood obtained his Ph.D from Michigan State University in Computer Sciences.

Dr. Richard Enbody is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He joined the faculty in 1987 after earning his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. Richard received his B.A. in Mathematics from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1976, and spent six years teaching high school mathematics in Vermont and New Hampshire. Richard has published research in a variety of areas, but mostly in computer security and computer architecture. He holds two nanotechnology patents from his collaboration with Physicists. Together with Bill Punch he published a textbook Using Python in CS1: The Practice of Computing Using Python (Addison-Wesley, 2010), now in its second edition.