What is the purpose of a back door in a compromised system?

A back door in a compromised system is designed to provide unauthorized remote access to the system or network without the knowledge of legitimate users or administrators. This type of access is typically established by an attacker who aims to bypass standard security measures, enabling them to control the system at will.

The purpose of a back door includes facilitating further exploitation, enabling data exfiltration, or allowing the attacker to install additional malware or implement further malicious activities without raising suspicion. The remote access granted by a back door can occur even when security protocols or user authentication measures are in place, effectively circumventing these protective layers.

Creating a back door often involves exploiting vulnerabilities or embedding malicious code during the initial compromise, thus ensuring that the attacker can regain access in the future, even if the compromised entry point is discovered and patched. This capability is fundamentally what makes back doors a significant security threat.

In contrast, enhancing system security would involve strengthening defenses against unauthorized access and the use of tracking user activities typically aims at monitoring legitimate behavior to detect anomalies rather than facilitating unauthorized access. Encrypting stored data serves to protect it from unauthorized viewing but does not relate to remote access functionalities associated with a back door.