Countermeasures for Enumeration

Countermeasures for Enumeration

Enumeration is a process where attackers use brute force techniques to check whether certain data exists in a web server database (Agghey et al., 2021). It is employed to guess or confirm valid users in vulnerable websites or systems requiring user authentication. Enumeration is a major cyber security threat as it allows attackers to gain access to valuable employee data stored in the web server, and there is a need to take effective measures to prevent these attacks. Here are some of the measures organizations and their IT teams can take to counter enumeration.

One of the measures is having Multi-Factor Authentication as a requirement in each login attempt (Ometov et al., 2018). This would block the brute force attempts to access the servers; they have to provide the correct authentication tokens, which can only be provided by authorized personnel. The number of login attempts from the same IP address can also be limited. This is done by blocking the login process after failed attempts beyond the limit.

Another way to counter enumeration is by installing a web application firewall. The firewall would be responsible for monitoring and filtering incoming HTTP traffic and blocking suspicious login attempts from a single IP address. Cyber awareness training can also be done to educate the employees concerning the risks associated with enumeration and other cyber threats. They can also be trained on the means used by cybercriminals to get sensitive data from them. NTP Suite is an example of a tool that can be used to countermeasure enumeration. It is used to collect information about the Network Time Protocol service on a target system. IT teams are able to identify vulnerabilities by probing the NTP service that would assist them take necessary actions to secure their systems.

References

Agghey, A. Z., Mwinuka, L. J., Pandhare, S. M., Dida, M. A., & Ndibwile, J. D. (2021). Detection of Username Enumeration Attack on SSH Protocol: Machine Learning Approach. Symmetry 2021, Vol. 13, Page 2192, 13(11), 2192. https://doi.org/10.3390/SYM13112192

Ometov, A., Bezzateev, S., Mäkitalo, N., Andreev, S., Mikkonen, T., & Koucheryavy, Y. (2018). Multi-factor authentication: A survey. Cryptography, 2(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.3390/

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Countermeasures for Enumeration

Discuss information and advice you can provide to clients to help them and their IT teams take steps to counter enumeration. Provide an example and a tool or technique you could use as a countermeasure.