Blackhole
Ashishreddy Maggidi
Cybersecurity Planning and Management
Phishing refers to cybercriminal activity that seeks to obtain sensitive information such as credentials from an individual prevalent in emails. The email is disguised to resemble a legitimate organization and is distributed to a large number of people. The email typically contains an urgent tone that spells out consequences if the respondent fails to communicate within the availed timeframe. Blackhole is a subset of phishing that is a web application that helps malicious attackers to implant malicious scripts on websites or emails that manipulate security flaws of the system to provide access. The Blackhole exploit kits are developed from PHP and MYSQL and capitalize on security flaws that ameliorate the chances of the efficacy of an exploit. The kit is updated and is released into the public domain Statistics indicate that individuals who perform click rates on email are mostly triggered by the warning that is noted in such email (Bhadane 2017). The number of individuals who fail to comply and click on the link are cautious and understand the risk assessment of possible malware downloads.
The blackhole kit attempt to simulate the real servers of the legitimate servers on which they are trying to obtain credentials, checking the authenticity of the certificate is crucial in determining the validity. This is performed by directing the link to a legitimate website that is controlled by the attacker before redirecting again to a subsequent site that installs the resources required to monitor and perform remote activities of the computer (Greene & Theofanos, 2018). Early detection systems should be installed with sophisticated packet filters and sniffers that are implemented with algorithms that allow them to check the security certificates of the servers through which the client is connected. Embedded phishing awareness training is crucial in providing knowledge to the users about the dangers of clicking on unknown clicks. The organization should create a test environment and issues a test blackhole email to assess the possible projection when the real attacks occur.
References
Bhadane, A., & Mane, S. B. (2017). The State of Research on Phishing and Recent Trends of Attacks. i-Manager’s Journal on Computer Science, 5(4), 14.
Greene, K., Stevens, M., & Theofanos, M. (2018). No phishing beyond this point. Computer, 51(6), 86-89.