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In continuing our discussion on basic security principles and terms, we're going to talk about a few more terms and concepts that will help you understand where we're coming from when we talk about computer security. During this part of the course, we're going to talk about attack vectors, which will discuss some of the different methods of attack that hackers can use to get into your computers. We'll also look at defense concepts. We'll talk about defense in depth in particular. Then we're going to get a little bit more into theory and discuss terms such vulnerabilities, threats and exposure. This is going to be a good bedrock foundation for us to get into basic risk concepts. We'll discuss the fundamental of risk management. Keep in mind throughout this particular session that we're not going to go in depth on any one particular term a lot. We're going to give you the definitions of the terms because later on as we go through the course, we're going to be going more in depth on some of these things. This is just to get you familiar with some of the terminology. Let's go ahead and talk about attack vectors. Now, everyone's heard stories about malicious hackers invading their computer networks or people who put viruses on computers or people who stage phishing attacks on innocent users and get their personal information. A lot of these attacks are done through different vectors or different avenues. All computers and networks out there are at risk from the different forms and avenues of attacks. Now, attacks can come from a wide variety of sources. They can be network attacks, computer attacks and even attacks against people. They can be technological attacks, meaning that they can use a computer or network system in order to carry out their attack, but they can also be human attacks. We'll talk about some of the human attacks a little bit later on, such as social engineering. We can classify attacks in different ways as well and depending upon how we classify them is to how we will defend against them. Attacks can be network-based, meaning that an attack can take place over a network, it can come through your outer network perimeter, through your firewalls for example, but it can also be a network-based attack in that some of the technology used relies on the network or relies on vulnerabilities in a network in order to carry out the attack. Attacks can also be host-based. When we say host-based, we're basically talking about attacks that take place on the computer itself. Some of these might be virus attacks or phishing attacks or some other kind of malicious logic attack. Attacks can target network devices, hosts, such as computers, and even people. They can also attack the applications that we run on our computers and the operating systems themselves. And again, as we go through this course, we'll look at some of these attacks specifically and how to defend against them. Some attacks have different goals in mind. You may want to classify an attack by what goal it has. For example, an attack to steal data from a computer may be classified and defended against differently than an attack that seeks to damage data or damage the computer itself. Some attacks attempt to steal data, but other attacks attempt to just simply access the computer systems without permission or authorization. The goal of accessing those computers without authorization may be steal data over time, it may be to destroy a computer systems or it may even be used to further extend access to other computers from the first computer that had been attacked. When a computer that's been attacked becomes basically what we call owned by a hacker, in other words, they've attacked it, they have put malicious code on it and they are able to use it for their own wishes, we say that computer's been compromised. Now, another kind of attack that we'll look at as we go is an attack that attempts to destroy or corrupt data or even damage the computer systems or network systems themselves. That's called a denial of service attack and essentially a denial of service attack, or DOS as we sometimes call it, essentially attempts to deny the use of the computer systems, their data and the network from their authorized users. In other words, if I conduct a denial of service or DOS attack against a computer, I'm not really concerned with getting data or stealing identities and so forth. I'm concerned with making it so you as the user can't use that computer or data itself. Now, sometimes denial of service attacks are carried out by hackers because they have a grudge or because they have something to prove to whoever they're attacked. Sometimes these might insiders or people who may have been fired from the organization or have some kind of a grudge. But also denial of service attacks, if they come from say a general hacker, may be a last ditch effort. In other words, the hacker has already attempted to access the systems or steal data and maybe you've got the systems protected so well that they can't do that. So as a last ditch effort, just because they're angry or because they want to prove something, they may conduct a denial of service attack against the network. Again, we're going to be talking about these attacks a little bit more in depth as we go. In the next session, we'll also talk about the terminology associated with defending against these kinds of attacks. sion, we'll also talk about the terminology associated with defending against these kinds of attacks.