A botnet, which is also known as a robot network, is a malware that infects networks of computers and gets them under the control of a single attacker who is called a ‘bot herder.’ A bot is an individual machine that is under the control of bot herders. The attacker acts as a central party who can command every bot to perform simultaneous and coordinated criminal actions.

The botnet is a large-scale attack since a bot herder can control millions of bots at a time. All the botnets can receive updates from the attacker to change their behavior in no time.

When two users have the same password, it will result in the creation of the same password hashes. In such a case, an attacker can easily crack the password by performing a dictionary or brute-force attack. To avoid this, a salted hash is implemented.

A salted hash is used to randomize hashes by prepending or appending a random string (salt) to the password before hashing. This results in the creation of two completely different hashes, which can be employed to protect the users’ passwords in the database against the attacker.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
It employs encryption algorithms to keep any sensitive data that is sent between a client and a server by scrambling the data in transit. This helps prevent hackers from reading any data, such as credit card details and personal and other financial information; it is done by keeping the Internet connection secure.

Transport Layer Security (TLS)
TLS is the successor of SSL. It is an improved version protocol that works just like SSL to protect the information transfer. However, to provide better security, both TLS and SSL are often implemented together.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) requires a password, along with a unique form of identification like a login code via text message (SMS) or a mobile application, to verify a user. When the user enters the password, he/she is prompted for the security code to log in to the website. If the code mismatches, the user will be blocked from entering the website.

Examples of 2FA: Google Authenticator, YubiKey, Microsoft Authenticator, etc.

Cognitive Cybersecurity is a way of using human-like thought mechanisms and converting them to be used by Artificial Intelligence technologies in cyber security to detect security threats. It is to impart human knowledge to the cognitive system, which will be able to serve as a self-learning system. This helps identify the threats, determine their impact, and manifest reactive strategies.

In phishing, an attacker masquerades as a trusted entity (as a legitimate person/company) to obtain sensitive information by manipulating the victim. It is achieved by any kind of user interaction, such as asking the victim to click on a malicious link and to download a risky attachment, to get confidential information such as credit card information, usernames, passwords, and network credentials. 

The following are some of the ways to prevent phishing:

1. Install firewalls
2. Rotate passwords frequently
3. Do not click on or download from unknown sources
4. Get free anti-phishing tools
5. Do not provide your personal information on an unsecured/unknown site

SQL injection is an injection attack where an attacker executes malicious SQL commands in the database server, including MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle, that runs behind a web application. The intent is to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data such as client information, personal information, intellectual property details, and so on. In this attack, the attacker can add, modify, and delete records in the database, which results in the data integrity loss of an organization.

Ways to prevent SQL injection:

1. Limit providing read access to the database
2. Sanitize data with the limitation of special characters
3. Validate user inputs
4. Use prepared statements
5. Check for active updates and patches

Forward secrecy is a property of certain key agreement protocols that ensures that the session keys will not be exposed if the server’s private key is exposed. Perfect forward secrecy is another name for it (PFS).
The “Diffie–Hellman key exchange” algorithm is used to accomplish this.

Conclusion:

Cybersecurity is critical because it safeguards all types of data against theft and loss. Sensitive data, personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), personal information, intellectual property, data, and governmental and industry information systems all fall under this category.
Your company won’t be able to defend itself if it doesn’t have a cybersecurity program.
Cyber security awareness is defined as the knowledge of an action taken to secure a company’s information assets. When employees at a company are cyber security conscious, it implies they understand what cyber dangers are, the possible impact a cyber-attack will have on their company, and the procedures necessary to reduce risk and prevent cyber-crime from penetrating their online workspace.
To learn more about Cyber Security, you can go through the following references:-

• Hacking: The Art of Exploitation by Jon Erickson
• Practical Malware Analysis by Michael Sikorski

Active reconnaissance is a type of computer assault in which an intruder interacts with the target system in order to gather information about weaknesses.
Port scanning is commonly used by attackers to detect vulnerable ports, after which they exploit the vulnerabilities of services linked with open ports.
This could be done using automatic scanning or manual testing with tools like ping, traceroute, and netcat, among others. This sort of recon necessitates interaction between the attacker and the victim. This recon is faster and more precise, but it generates far more noise. Because the attacker must engage with the target in order to obtain information, the recon is more likely to be detected by a firewall or other network security device.

We must decide what to encrypt and where the encryption mechanism should be situated if encryption is to be used to counter attacks on confidentiality. Link and end-to-end encryption are the two main ways of encryption placement.
End-to-end encryption, or E2EE, is a secure data transfer system in which data is encrypted and decrypted only at the endpoints, regardless of how many points it passes through in the middle of its virtual journey. This sort of encryption is an excellent technique to communicate in a secure and confidential manner. Because no one else has the key to decode it, no one in the middle will be able to read it.
The primary difference between link encryption and end-to-end encryption is that link encryption encrypts and decrypts all traffic at all points, not just at the endpoints. All data is encrypted as it travels along the communication line with this approach. When it reaches a router or another intermediary device, however, it is decrypted so that the intermediator can determine which direction to send it next.

Stream ciphers and block ciphers are two types of symmetric key encryption algorithms used to provide confidentiality and integrity of data.

A stream cipher encrypts the data bit-by-bit or byte-by-byte, in a continuous stream, usually by generating a keystream from a key and then combining it with the plaintext. The keystream is generated using a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) or a stream cipher algorithm. The keystream is then combined with the plaintext using an XOR operation to generate the ciphertext. Since the keystream is generated continuously, the length of the plaintext and ciphertext is usually the same. Stream ciphers are generally faster than block ciphers and can be used for real-time encryption of data.

On the other hand, a block cipher divides the plaintext into fixed-size blocks, typically 64 or 128 bits in length, and encrypts each block separately. The most commonly used mode of operation is the Electronic Codebook (ECB) mode, where each block is encrypted using the same key. Other modes, such as Cipher Block Chaining (CBC), Counter (CTR), and Galois/Counter Mode (GCM), provide better security by adding additional inputs, such as an initialization vector (IV), to each block. Block ciphers are slower than stream ciphers but provide better security and can be used to encrypt large amounts of data.

In summary, stream ciphers encrypt data bit-by-bit or byte-by-byte using a continuous keystream, while block ciphers divide the plaintext into fixed-size blocks and encrypt each block separately.

DNS hijacking is a sort of cyberattack in which cyber thieves utilize weaknesses in the Domain Name System to redirect users to malicious websites and steal data from targeted machines. Because the DNS system is such an important part of the internet infrastructure, it poses a serious cybersecurity risk.

Perimeter-based cybersecurity entails putting security measures in place to safeguard your company’s network from hackers. It examines people attempting to break into your network and prevents any suspicious intrusion attempts.

The term “data-based protection” refers to the use of security measures on the data itself. It is unaffected by network connectivity. As a result, you can keep track of and safeguard your data regardless of where it is stored, who accesses it, or which connection is used to access it.

These can be avoided by the following precautions:-

• Examine the DNS zones in your system.
• Make sure your DNS servers are up to current.
• The BIND version is hidden.
• Transfers between zones should be limited.
• To avoid DNS poisoning attempts, disable DNS recursion.
• Use DNS servers that are separated.
• Make use of a DDOS mitigation service