CompTIA® Security+™: Study Guide, Fifth Edition

Recognizing Common Attacks

Most attacks are designed to exploit potential weaknesses, which can be in the implementation of programs or in the protocols used in networks. Many types of attacks require a high level of sophistication and are rare, but you need to know about them so that, should they occur, you can identify what has happened in your network.

In the following sections, we’ll look at some common attacks more closely.

Backdoor Attacks

The term backdoor attack (known also as back door) can have two different meanings. The original term backdoor referred to troubleshooting and developer hooks into systems that often circumvented normal authentication. During the development of a complicated operating system or application, programmers ...