The Difference Between Active Attacks and Passive Attacks

 The Difference Between Active Attacks and Passive Attacks

The faster the world is developing in terms of improvement of peoples’ socio-economic, social and cultural living standards as well as development in science and technology, the greater the development of challenges and threats especially the growing cyber crimes and the world of dark black hat hackers. There are new types of cyber threats, attacks as well as hacking vulnerability making the cybersecurity weaker and development at risk. However, the numerous cyber attacks can be broadly categorised into two broad types, the active cyberattacks and the passive cyberattacks. Both in the active as well as passive cyberattacks, the attackers aim towards gaining access to important and confidential data and information of the businesses as well as customers.

The active cyberattacks basically attempt to affect the operation of the computer and other internet-enabled devices of the victim as well as change the system resources of the victim. On the other hand, the passive attack attempts to make use of the data and information available in the computer and other internet-enabled devices of the victim. Similarly, the basic active cyberattacks modify and harm the system of the victim but in passive attacks, the attackers neither harm the system nor do any modification. In addition to this, in the basic active attack, the victim comes to know about the attack whereas in passive attack the victim does not know about the attack. In the final stage of the basic active attack, the attacker captures the transmission and controls the system. On the other hand, in the passive attack, the attacker observes the transmission.

In the active attacks, prevention is never possible because of several vulnerabilities at the level of system-related software and network and devices. Therefore, if an active attack has taken place, the victims should emphasize on detecting the type of attack and start recovering the damages. Eventually, the victim of the attack knows about the attack but until then the attackers already have gained access into the system of the victim. There are three types of active attacks namely interruptive active attacks, the modification-based active attacks, and fabrication-based active attacks.

On the other hand, in passive attacks, the attackers monitor the transmissions or gather information, and do not make any modification in the system nor brings about any changes in the data and information of the system.In addition to this, the victim of passive attack does not know about the passive attack. However, the victim can preventpassive attack by using encryption methods.

Clare Louise

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