What is a watering hole attack?

The watering hole is used to attack a group of victims by injecting malicious code into websites’ pages. This attack installs the malware or trojan into the ender user’s system when the user visits the infectious web page which is created by cybercriminals. Watering hole attack is not uncommon among cybercriminals because sometimes it is difficult for attackers to target specific website because cybercriminals investigate and examine the vulnerabilities of a certain website. The attacker(s) may compromise a website for days or even months to finalize the target for an attack, but it is robust enough to infect different websites in a single hit which maintains the value of zero-day exploitation or the day when a weakness is uncovered in software. The attackers can examine or investigate the logs of the website which help them to spot any victim or user. This is the proficiency of watering hole attack that offers a confirmation of hacking maximum sensitive data of victim(s) on zero-day exploitation.

In an appropriate implementation of watering hole attack, a cybercriminal must compromise a website and then the attacker will gather all the relevant information about the victims such as personal interests, which contains remarkable endeavor to access the desired data.

Solutions to avoid watering hole attacks

There are some solutions to avoid watering hole attack but still, no system is fully secured because of human error. Software should be updated consistently to mitigate the risk of watering hole attack and patches should also be updated to reduce security vulnerabilities. Keep track of the company’s employees’ activities like an employee is sharing the company’s sensitive information in unofficial working hours which can be avoided. If a company’s employees are visiting a bunch of websites regularly then employees from IT department should compile those most visited websites and examine those websites for any malicious or trojan activity. By examining most visited websites, malicious activity can be detected, and the internet traffic should be blocked on that specific malicious website to reduce the risk of losing the company’s confidential information. The employees of the company and clients or users should be informed about watering hole attack and education of cyber security attacks is a key to reduce the risk of losing personal or company’s intimate information on the internet.

Need any help with watering hole attacks?

Written by Julio Del Cid from DelCorp Data. Julio Del Cid can help with watering hole attacks. If you need assistance you can visit our contact page and request a call-back about watering hole attacks.

DelCorp Data is a cybersecurity agency which specializes in software-based attacks and overall cyber protection of your organization. Contact us on 1300 del corp / 1300335267. We are an Australian company based in Melbourne.