With the introduction of stricter laws to protect consumer privacy, companies are facing increasing pressure to secure their databases. With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies can now be required to pay fines of up to 10 million euros or 2% of their annual turnover. Over time, data security has become an increasingly important and complex issue. In the US, for example, cybercrime costs approximately 525 million dollars annually. It is clear that more measures are needed to ensure cybersecurity and prevent hacking attacks.
At this point, it is worth mentioning the security of ports and their importance. More specifically, computers use a port to connect to the Internet or internal networks. The basic firewall acts as a guard for these ports. Data sent electronically is analyzed in a series of packets, which are transferred to the specific port. The port used each time depends on the type of application being used. Each packet has a port number encoded in the header. The firewall “reads” the header to determine what type of application the packet contains, while analyzing each packet according to the rules defined by each user. Applications that are not considered safe will be blocked.
However, a firewall cannot protect users from all types of malicious activity. This is because whenever a computer connects to a network or the Internet, there is always the possibility of a hacking attack. Any open port on the computer could potentially be hacked. Hackers use port scanning programs to see which ports are active and which are not. They then look for vulnerabilities that they can access using these programs. A good firewall and frequent software updates provide a fairly good level of protection for users. However, in all types of applications it is difficult to ensure that every program is up to date. Even if the software is up to date, users cannot be sure what is happening with other devices connected to their network. In this case, users should not rely on the functioning of their firewall. More generally, when it comes to cybersecurity, users should never rely on a single core system.
Each port is used for a specific purpose. Therefore, users can improve security by closing any ports that are not in use. By scanning the ports on a computer, hackers can identify any vulnerabilities. In addition, they create a program that sends a message to each of the ports at a time. In this way, hackers can extract information about any port that a user is using. Hackers can then receive the following responses:
- Open: This is what a hacker. This means that the port is open and that there is a potential attack vector.
- Closed: This indicates that the host is responding, but there is no application currently running. To hackers, this means that the port may be enabled later, so they usually come back later and check again.
- Filtered: This is not what a hacker is looking for. In this case, the hacking attack may have caused the packet to be dropped, while this may also indicate that the firewall has rejected the request.
The results of these scans will also highlight potential vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. If they find any vulnerabilities, a hacker will be able to gain access and do whatever they want, such as steal or destroy data, lock or insert malicious code , and more, while the victim will not be able to realize that they are being attacked until some damage or harm is caused. A smart hacker will steal whatever they want without leaving a trace.
If users wish to protect their systems from hacking attacks, they need to be aware of the different types of attacks they may face:
- Vanilla: This attack takes considerably longer, but the hacker tries every virtual port on the system.
- Strobe: This type of attack is faster because it focuses on services that have vulnerabilities and the ports they commonly use.
- Fragmented Packets: These are not complete data packets, but fragments of packets. This can trick a user's firewall into accepting packets that it otherwise would not accept.
- User Datagram Protocol: In this case, the attacker focuses on open UDP ports.
- Sweep: This is a system-level attack. Instead of targeting a specific computer within the network, the hacker targets a port on several computers. This allows them to see which computers on the network are active.
- FTP Bounce: The hacker targets an FTP server. That is where the source of the attack is hidden.
- Stealth: This form of attack ensures that the computer does not record the scans a hacker makes.
To keep their data safe, users need to frequently check network ports and shut down those that are not needed, a process that is now very easy. Special programs, such as NetCrunch, can be configured to automatically scan all ports and provide users with reports on how secure they are. If NetCrunch detects a potential vulnerability or unauthorized activity, it will immediately notify the user. Finally, the software can also identify inactive ports and advise users to disable them.
