¿Do you know what Live CD is? and how is it used in cybersecurity?
Ethical hacking, which consists of replicating malicious techniques to access and attack systems, is a discipline that has a wide variety of tools and methods. Ethical hackers, like malicious hackers, must test any possible strategy to compromise the target system. That’s why, for a malicious hacker to gain physical access to the system It is an aspect to take into account within your security scheme.
A cyber attack can be done remotely through the exploitation of their vulnerabilities software or the spread of malware. However, it can also be exercised through a removable device such as a USB, as we will see below.
In this post, we will talk about a Windows functionality that attackers can use to take remote control of the machine and it is related to the use of removable devices or ISO images. Next, we will explain what LiveCD is and how it is used in ethical hacking and cybersecurity.
What is Live CD?
Live CD is an operating system (usually some GNU/Linux distribution) that is stored on removable media.. Previously, it was used mainly in CD or DVD format and that’s where it got its name. Currently, the idea of what Live CD is has had to adapt to technology and can be used from a USB stick or an ISO image.
ISO images are exact copies of the contents of a removable drive, such as a USB or CD. On the internet, you can find ISO images with Linux distributions to run in a virtual machine or a computer.
Windows has functionality that allows the machine to run using the operating system from a removable drive. This function easily allows you to run a system like Kali Linux on a computer and perform tasks in it without having to log in directly from a user’s account or through a payload.
Know what it is Live CD allows you to run a GNU/Linux operating system on any Windows computer that does not have the security measure that we will explain below. So, when the machine is not properly configured, this vulnerability will almost always exist.
How to protect yourself from a cyber attack with Live CD?
We have already seen what Live CD is and why it can be used in cyber attacks against Windows machines. Therefore, Now we will see how to protect a system from this hacking technique.
One of the characteristics of Live CD is that it can be run without generating changes to the computer. Therefore, it can be used by hackers to attack silently.
The Windows functionality of running the system with Live CD will only be enabled if the machine’s disk is not encrypted. That’s why, The ideal security measure, if you want to avoid attacks with this method, is to make sure that the disk is encrypted. This work of hardening will keep the computer safe from this type of physical access attacks to the system.
How to learn more?
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