Rise of the Bots and Cybersecurity Essentials

A collection of vocabulary terms covering different types of malware, cyberattacks, hacking categories, and the legal framework of the Computer Misuse Act (1990) as presented in the lecture.

Malware

Malicious software designed to gain access to a computer with intent to disable hardware, steal data, force advertising, send spam, or extort money.

Botnet

A large collection of malware-infected devices, known as zombies, controlled by an attacker.

Bot herder

An attacker who chooses when to 'wake' the zombies in a botnet to perform an attack.

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)

An attack where multiple malware-infected computers make requests to a single server at the same time to overload the system.

DoS (Denial of Service)

A cyberattack in which a criminal makes a network resource unavailable to intended users by flooding the target machine with requests.

Ransomware

A self-replicating form of virus that locks a computer and encrypts files, demanding a ransom be paid to unlock the data.

Internet bots

Automated programs that perform tasks repeatedly, such as indexing for search engines (crawlers), providing customer service (chatbots), or monitoring prices (shopbots).

Adware

A form of worm, virus, or Trojan that infects a computer to download or display malicious adverts or pop-ups.

Spyware

Unwanted software that monitors and gathers information on how a person uses their computer, sometimes for targeted advertising.

Keyloggers

A sinister type of spyware that records every keystroke made by a user to steal sensitive data.

Trojans

Software that appears to perform a useful function, such as a game, but hiddenly performs malicious actions like opening a 'back door' for attackers.

Worms

Malware that replicates itself to spread through a network and use system resources (bandwidth) without needing to attach to files.

Viruses

Malicious self-replicating software that modifies other programs by inserting code; it must be initiated or executed by a user to infect a system.

Hacking

The act of gaining unauthorised access to or control of a computer system.

Penetration testers (pen testers)

People paid to legally hack into systems with the purpose of helping a company identify security weaknesses.

Script kiddies

Hackers who use tools downloaded from the internet to perform attacks with little technical knowledge.

Hacktivists

Individuals motivated by political reasons or social causes who use hacking to create disruption or public embarrassment.

Brute force attack

A form of attack that makes multiple attempts to discover sensitive information, such as a password.

The Computer Misuse Act (1990)

Parliamentary legislation that established three specific offences regarding unauthorised access and interference with computer systems.

Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act (1990)

Unauthorised access to computer material (data).

Section 2 of the Computer Misuse Act (1990)

Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate the commission of further offences.

Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act (1990)

Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, the operation of a computer.

Cloudflare.com (2019) Statistic

A report stating that over $50\%$ of all internet traffic is bot traffic, a significant portion of which is malicious.