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Published in:
2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
The New Office Threat: A Simulation of Watering Hole Cyberattacks
Authors : Braeden Bowen, Jeremy Eraybar, Iyanuoluwa Odebode, Douglas D. Hodson, Michael R. Grimaila
Published in: Advances in Parallel & Distributed Processing, and Applications
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
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Abstract
The focus of this paper is to develop a DEVS-style simulation model to manipulate common variables in an advanced persistent threat (APT)-style watering hole attack, a style of attack that targets an organization or target group by infecting a commonly used website or service. A simulation of the environment exposed to this specific attack was developed through Python, carrying variables of target group size, number of trusted sites, and duration of attack before discovery. Analysis of simulation averages suggest that the size of the target group and the duration of the attack are the most important factors in the spread of the malware, though for each category the returns on speed of infection diminish as the size and time of the overall control groups increase.