Incident Response: A Strategic Guide to Handling System and Network Security Breaches

The Nature of Incidents

It is extremely difficult to predict how future incidents will differ from current trends because the data on current trends is so incomplete. Although some evidence might suggest that external attacks are becoming more common (as discussed in Chapter 10, “Responding to Insider Attacks”), personal experience tends to imply that insiders continue to dominate (at least the most serious). Recent years have seen a rise in virus and worm incidents and new motivations for attacks (such as “hacktivism”).

Viruses and Worms

Viruses and worms are nothing new. In 1988, the Morris worm brought virtually the entire Internet to a halt. At that time, however, the Internet was restricted to a few government agencies and academic institutions. ...