Defending against common cyber attacks: Phishing and cross-site scripting

Abstract

Social engineering is a very common method of deceiving people in the Cyberspace. Phishing is one of the most common attacks that the social engineers use to trick the users to reveal their confidential information. While various types of security schemes and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) may be employed to mitigate other types of cyber-attacks, phishing cannot be thwarted only by using those, even if the techniques are sophisticated. This is because, often the human mistakes are involved in the process of leakage of confidential data and information. Hence, awareness of the issue and controlled cyber behavior would be key to defending against phishing type attack. Another cyber-attack, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) could also be tackled efficiently by using some Content Security Policy (CSP) which would work alongside the traditionally used security and defense mechanisms. The purpose of this talk is to share some research findings in these and relevant areas. Also, some information would be shared for the general readers of the topic. We would like to explore how the major portion of these types of attacks could be thwarted or mitigated just by observing some precautions while interacting in the Cyberspace.