Client-side attacks are becoming more and more popular because they work, and they work well. They take advantage of the client-server architecture that is in use today. These clients or endpoints run full operating systems with all types of application running on them. Both the operating systems as well as the applications contained on these clients have vulnerabilities. This demonstrates the importance of patch management.

Client-side attacks exploit these vulnerabilities in different ways. In the following examples, we use BeEF to leverage a browser-based attack. However, that is not the only way. You can get files onto the machine via email or other methods to exploit Java or Adobe Reader on the client side to take whatever you want from that machine or just control it for some other purpose down the road. The choice is yours, which is why...