Comparing passive and active attacks
An attack on an information system can be against any of the following services: confidentiality, integrity, availability, or authentication. To further define the types of attacks, there are two broad categories, passive and active:
- Passive attacks do not interfere with the system or data integrity, and include activity such as scanning or eavesdropping using packet analysis.
- Active attacks seek to disrupt services, modify, steal, or destroy data, and include attacks such as a Denial of Service (DoS) attack, or releasing malware.
In this section, we'll compare each of the categories and provide some examples of each, along with ways to protect against the various attacks.
Let's start with a discussion on passive attacks.
Carrying out a passive attack
With an active attack, there may be some network instability, system disruption, or data modification. However, with a passive attack, the objective is to do the...
