What is a zero day attack?

Zero Day attack activity level Zero day attacks can cause significant damage to projects and users in the crypto market. So what is a zero day attack? How does it work? How to promptly detect and prevent zero day attacks?
What is Zero Day Attack?
Zero Day Attack is a form of cyber attack aimed at exploiting a vulnerability in software or systems that has not been identified by vendors.
It is called “zero-day” because this attack occurs before the software developer can detect the vulnerability or provide any patches or security measures, and they have no days to prepare. and protect software from attack.
In the crypto market, zero day attacks can occur on wallet software, exchanges, smart contracts, blockchain consensus mechanisms, dApps... to take over. project and user crypto assets.

Distinguish between Zero Day Attack, Exploit and Vulnerability
Some terms commonly associated with Zero day include Zero Day Attack, Zero Day Exploit and Zero Day Vulnerability to refer to different meanings:

• Zero Day Vulnerability: A software vulnerability discovered by attackers before the developer knows about it. Therefore, there are no patches available for zero day vulnerabilities and it results in zero day attacks being more likely to succeed.
• Zero Day Exploit: A method that hackers use to attack systems with zero day vulnerabilities.
• Zero Day Attack: The use of a zero day exploit to cause damage or steal data from a system with a zero day vulnerability.

How does Zero Day Attack work?
The zero day attack will take place through three phases:
*** Phase 1: Detecting vulnerabilities. Hackers will discover vulnerabilities in the software or system they target. This vulnerability can be related to the application, operating system, browser or any other component in the software.
*** Phase 2: Develop vulnerability exploit code. Initially, the hacker will deploy a malicious code (called exploit code) to exploit that vulnerability. He can use many different forms or malware to infiltrate users' software and systems, for example:

• Social Engineering: A form of taking advantage of users' trust and vulnerabilities, influencing human psychology to steal information to penetrate software.
• Spyware: A type of malware that runs in the background, programmed to monitor and record activities on computer devices and collect users' personal information.
• Phishing attack: The attacker will impersonate a reputable individual/organization to deceive users and steal personal information, bank accounts... Some forms of fraud include websites or extensions, applications, email/voice chat, DNS…
• Ransomware: A type of malicious software (malware) that can infiltrate a user's computer device or system to encrypt the data inside, then scramble that content, making it unreadable and blocked. user access rights.

*** Phase 3: Attack. After entering the software, hackers will attack the system, stealing important data or user assets.
As mentioned before, because these are vulnerabilities that have not been identified in advance and have no way to fix them, a zero day attack will often take place "smoothly" with relatively large damage. until the software developer releases a security patch to prevent it.
Some Zero Day attacks in crypto
Historically, there have been many zero day attacks in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, some typical cases include:

• MyEtherWallet Wallet (April 2018): Attackers exploited a bug on MyEtherWallet's website, allowing them access to modify the balances of specific wallet addresses, leading to transfers to their wallets and lost an amount of ETH worth 150,000 USD.
• Parity (July 2023): Parity smart contract platform suffered a vulnerability attack targeting multi-signature wallets containing ETH tokens, with a total loss of more than 30 million USD. This vulnerability allows an attacker to execute transactions from any multi-signature wallet on Parity without the permission of the owners, resulting in the loss of funds.
• Curve Finance (July 2023): Hackers take advantage of an unknown bug in versions 0.2.15, 0.2.16 and 0.3.0 of the Vyper programming language to attack projects that use contracts Smart is built on these versions, including Curve Finance. Hackers performed a zero day attack on Curve Finance and appropriated $52 million in the protocol's stablecoin pools.

How to prevent Zero Day attacks
To protect yourself from zero day attacks and keep your computers and personal data safe, both users and projects and organizations must first follow the most basic security measures. network, including:

• Always update the software to the latest patches. Install an intrusion detection/prevention system (IDS/IPS).
• Check authenticity before installing any application or software, avoid using fake software.
• Understanding zero day attacks and malware is the first step for users to prevent and prevent hackers from accessing their software or devices.

Some measures to help the project promptly detect vulnerabilities and prevent zerp day attacks include:

• Advanced technology-based anomaly detection: Projects can deploy advanced security solutions using machine learning and behavioral analysis, which help identify unusual patterns and activities happens online and in software. From there, research and identify the potential possibilities of zero day attacks to prevent them.
• Network monitoring: Continuously monitor network traffic and analyze activity history to detect suspicious activities, such as unusual data transfers or connections to known malicious domains...
• Security research and latest threat information: Stay up to date with information feeds about the latest malware and attacks. At the same time, there is always a security research department to ensure detailed information about new zero day vulnerabilities and potential attacks.
• Deploy Bug Bounty program: This helps the project attract white hat hackers to find, detect and report vulnerabilities in software or protocols, thereby fixing them before being attacked by agents toxic.