Ethical Hacking Essentials Practice Test

Which attack involves interrupting a SOAP message to execute malicious code in the cloud?

1. Phishing attack

2. Wrapping attack

3. Malware injection

4. Distributed denial of service

The correct answer is: Wrapping attack

The wrapping attack is a specific type of security vulnerability that targets SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) messages, particularly in web services. In this attack, the attacker intercepts a legitimate SOAP request and then modifies it to include additional, unauthorized commands or parameters. By doing so, the attacker effectively "wraps" the malicious code within the legitimate request, making it more challenging for security measures to detect the intrusion. This attack capitalizes on the trust that web services establish based on the structure of the SOAP messages. It can be especially effective in cloud environments where messages are exchanged frequently between applications and services. Because the attacker is able to inject their rogue code while resembling valid requests, it can lead to unauthorized actions being executed within the cloud infrastructure. In contrast, the other options involve different types of attacks. Phishing primarily focuses on deceiving individuals into providing sensitive information. Malware injection typically refers to the introduction of malicious software into a system, often targeting applications rather than the communication protocols. Lastly, a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack aims to overwhelm a target with excessive traffic to render services unavailable, rather than directly manipulating the content of exchanged messages. Each of these methods operates under different mechanisms, which is why the wrapping attack is a