How Cybercriminals Plan Cyber Attacks
Planning is the first thing to do before any cyber attack or cyber crime is carried out. A cyber security engineer or criminal hacker has to make a plan that accounts for the stages involved while planning a cyber-attack or security testing by a security engineer. These stages involved in the planning for cybercrime or attack are known as Phases of cybercrime, Phases of cyber attack, or Phases of hacking. Any type of cyber crime or attack needs planning, cyber attack planning is categorized into two stages namely, Passive Attack and Active Attack. A passive attack attempts to gather information about the target, whereas an Active Attack is carried out to alter or disrupt the system.
Both passive and active attacks can be carried out and are useful for both Insider attacks and Outsider Attacks. Planning is the set up of phases required to be carried out during the attack. To understand how cybercriminals plan cyber crimes, the following are some phases involved in planning cybercrime.
- Reconnaissance: Reconnaissance is the act of gathering information by searching and capturing information. The first phase that needs to be carried out is reconnaissance for information gathering. Information gathered is required to further up the attack by scanning them for acquiring more information in detail or an attack can also be carried out at this stage if the information gathered is enough.
- Scanning and Scrutinizing: Scanning and Scrutinizing is the act of searching and discovering vulnerabilities and system information and services. Information gathered in the first stage is used in this stage to discover more possible information required for launching the attack.
- Lunching Attack: A launching attack is an act of automating and executing an attack toward the target system with the help of information gathered and the attack execution tool.
- Gaining Access and Maintaining: Gaining Access refers to a successful attack or any act that allows an attacker to gain unauthorized access to a system. Maintaining access is the creation of a backdoor on the compromised system, access could be repeated with the help of a backdoor. Maintaining access may also be necessary if attackers wish to access the system again without prior scanning.
- Covering Tracks: When it comes to finding who is responsible for an attack, evidence left behind during the attack can be used to trace back any perpetrator. Tracks can be covered by staying anonymous before carrying out any attack and cleaning up i.e., history, creating files, etc. after completing the attack.
The above stages involved in cybercrime planning are for all areas of cyber attack and hacking. One stage has to be completed and successful before moving to another stage. When carrying out penetration testing on the system, these phases in planning are followed to ensure proper security testing.