Computer Security Art and Science, 2nd Edition

Chapter 27

Attacks and Responses

ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.MERCUTIO: No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough,’twill serve—ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

— The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, III, i, 98–101.

Preparing for attacks, handling them, and recovering from them requires both preparation and an understanding of how attacks work. Attack models are an attempt to frame the general ideas underlying attacks into a form that provides a basis for developing attacks or countering them. Understanding what happened in an attack, including its possible goals, requires that the attack be analyzed. Often, the model guides the analysis. This chapter examines models of ...