Sams Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 24 Hours, Fourth Edition

What Do Intruders Want?

As the preceding section mentioned, network attackers approach their craft from a number of motivations. Their goals might differ, but they all have the goal of gaining power and control of a computer system or network. Many of their intermediate steps are therefore the same.

The computer attack and infiltration process is organized around the following steps:

1.	Get access to the system.
2.	Get privileges.
3.	Get comfortable.
4.	Get ready for the next attack.

It is also worth noting that, for coordinated and well-organized attacks on computer networks, a separate reconnaissance phase often precedes these steps.

Attackers have several methods for gaining entry and getting comfortable, and, although it isn’t possible ...