Physical Access Attack
Physical access is the oldest form of compromise: the attacker reaches the device, the room, a port, a cable or a piece of paper. Once somebody can sit down at a computer, walk up to a server, put a device into a port or carry a laptop away, digital protection no longer helps.
Term
description · examples · notesPhysical access is the oldest form of compromise: the attacker reaches the device, the room, a port, a cable or a piece of paper. Once somebody can sit down at a computer, walk up to a server, put a device into a port or carry a laptop away, digital protection no longer helps.
Description
The attack can be walking in behind an employee through an automatic door, theft of equipment, access to the server room, planting a keylogger, booting from external media, photographing a screen, or copying data from an unlocked computer. It all depends on what is physically reachable and for how long.
Physical security is often kept apart from cyber security, but in an incident they meet in the same place. A laptop without disk encryption is not merely lost property. It is a mobile package of data that somebody carried off under their arm.
Examples
- The attacker follows an employee through a controlled door and enters the premises without a card of their own — tailgating.
- An unlocked laptop is stolen from an office or a car.
- A hardware keylogger is plugged in between the keyboard and the computer on a publicly reachable workstation.
Notes
- A screen that is not locked and a disk that is not encrypted cancel out most good security technology.
- Physical access does not have to last long. Sometimes a few minutes are enough.
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Techniques
carried out with 3Techniques used to carry it out. Select one to open its page.
Defenses
countered by 4How it is defended against. Select one to open its page.