Data Exfiltration Technique
Question
John used to work as a Network Administrator for We-are-secure Inc.
Now he has resigned from the company for personal reasons.
He wants to send out some secret information of the company.
To do so, he takes an image file and simply uses a tool image hide and embeds the secret file within an image file of the famous actress, Jennifer Lopez, and sends it to his Yahoo mail id.
Since he is using the image file to send the data, the mail server of his company is unable to filter this mail.
Which of the following techniques is he performing to accomplish his task?
Answers
Explanations
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The technique John is using to send the secret information of his former company is called steganography.
Steganography is a method of hiding information within an innocent-looking carrier file, such as an image, audio, or video file, in a way that is not apparent to the casual observer. The hidden information is embedded within the carrier file using various steganography techniques, such as LSB (Least Significant Bit) replacement, spread-spectrum, and phase encoding.
In this case, John used an image file of Jennifer Lopez as a carrier file to embed the secret information, and then he used an image hide tool to hide the data within the image. The resulting file appears as a normal image file and can be sent as an attachment to an email or transferred through any other method without arousing suspicion.
Since the image file with the embedded secret information appears to be a normal image file, the email server of his former company would not detect any malicious content in the email, making it an effective way for John to send out the secret information without being detected.
Email spoofing, social engineering, and web ripping are not the correct techniques that John is using. Email spoofing is a technique that is used to forge the sender's email address to trick the recipient into believing that the email is coming from a legitimate source. Social engineering is a technique that uses psychological manipulation to trick people into divulging confidential information. Web ripping is a technique that involves downloading an entire website or specific web pages for offline browsing.
