CompTIA Security+™: Study Guide, Fourth Edition

2.4. Understanding Software Exploitation

The term software exploitation refers to attacks launched against applications and higher-level services. They include gaining access to data using weaknesses in the data access objects of a database or a flaw in a service. This section briefly outlines common exploitations that have been successful in the past. The following exploitations can be introduced using viruses, as in the case of the Klez32 virus, or by using access attacks described earlier in this chapter:

Database exploitation

Many database products allow sophisticated access queries to be made in the client/server environment. If a client session can be hijacked or spoofed, the attacker can formulate queries against the database that disclose ...