When you hear Zero Day Exploit for the first time, it sounds like a sci-fi movie packed with mysterious elements. Indeed, this bug has become an element of mystery in the cyber world due to its vulnerability strength. It is considered as the most lethal mode of attack used by hackers today, exercised together with spear phishing and social engineering.
If your system is exposed to Zero Day Exploit, it is almost impossible to prevent the attack as their existence can stay hidden even after the vulnerability is exploited.
It doesn’t end there the ‘Exploits’ can go unnoticed for years and are often sold on the black market for large sums of money.
These characteristics of Zero Day Exploit makes it an invincible threat to software security and has left developers puzzled on finding a robust solution to it.
See how a group of hackers attempt a Zero Day Exploit on Coinbase, and almost succeeded in deceiving the coin-base security parameters.
In the past, it has also targeted the intellectual property of some well-known brands like Google, Yahoo, and Adobe Systems.
What is Zero Day Exploit?
A Zero Day Exploit is a software bug or vulnerability designed to work against computer software, hardware or IT system. In most of the cases, it is used as ransomware.
It inherits this name because the vulnerability has zero days of history. It means an attack is made on the same day the vulnerability is discovered in the software.
Since the attack is made on the same day of vulnerability exposed, the software developer cannot do much to fix the defect. So, hackers literally exploit this vulnerability for monetary gain.
Though keeping security patches upto date and deploying firewall restricts this malware, but its intrusion cannot be ruled out completely. It is also possible that the problem may not be solved by traditional security measures and need to adapt strategies that top blockchain companies are practising.
What are the detection techniques for Zero Day Exploit?
How you can detect zero day exploit
- Behavior-based detection methods: In this technique, you don’t examine the code of incoming files but instead observe how it interacts with existing software. Any change in the interaction pattern helps to predict the possibilities of malware.
- Signature-based detection: In this method, it compares the traffic with the known signature traits for possible attacks. For example, an e-mail with an interesting subject “You just won 1 million dollar lottery.”
- Statistics based detection: In this method, a huge amount of raw data of actual network traffic from the intrusion detection system is analysed to determine if traffic is normal or a threat.
- Hybrid detection: Hybrid detection technique involves combining two or three methods mentioned above. It allows producing more accurate results eliminating their existing weaknesses.
The above method works on prediction and does not guarantees 100% vulnerability detection.
How to recover from Zero Day Exploit
- Content Threat Removal (CTR): The approach is simple, it is assumed that all data is hostile, and their direct delivery is avoided. Only those data that has business information are accessible and pass through it.
- Data back-up: Use cloud storage as well as on-site data back-up to mitigate damages caused by Zero day exploit.
- Disconnect the Access: If possible, cut off all physical access from anyone who would have the ability to exploit it.
Finding a solution to this threat is no less than finding a needle in a haystack, but software developers are working arduously to fix this threat permanently.
Author Bio- Jimmy Johnson is an avid reader and full-time writer for GoodFirms. His fascination for technology was one-dimensional until he discovers how Robotic Process Automation and Cloud Computing can enhance business services. Since then, he scouts on many such exciting technologies that empower businesses beyond expectation.