Types of Cyber Attacks You Need To Secure Your Business From

By the time technology and development are evolving but Cyber Attacks too. Yes, 2020 saw over $1 trillion in losses due to cybercrime and these numbers are increasing each year. Do you know that half of the cyber-attacks are targeted at small-sized businesses? And attacks cost them an average of $200,000.

We are seeing that the cases of cybercrime are increasing over time. The reason for these attacks is the old theme and lack of security and settings.

Luckily, there are ways you can prevent your business from such cyber threats. In this blog post, we’ll learn how to save yourself from Cyber attackers and make your business secure all the time. Let’s begin by understanding what Cyber Attack is.

What is a Cyber Attack?

A Cyber Attack is a digital assault on a computer network. Hackers or Cybercriminals use a mix of malicious codes, programs, and hardware to attach themselves to the target and work from there. The aim behind this activity of hackers is money. This means they used to do mostly for money by selling information of your network.

There are two types of Cyber Attacks passive and active attacks. Let’s understand what they are and how it works.

• Passive Attack:

In this attack, mostly your data is tracked, monitored, and hacked by a human hacker. This is an attack where hackers gain access to your computer or network and monitor the activities such as tracking emails, data usage, and using the system’s microphone and camera.

• Active Attack:

This is a kind of attack where the hackers attempt to change, add or control data or hardware. The active attack is most commonly associated with hacking and includes attack types like Denial or Service and Malware.

While these are the general types of attacks that remain the same all the time, the main types of Cyber Attacks are changing with technology and development. However, we have listed those in this guide to help you with Cyber Attack prevention.

Types of Cyber Attacks You Need To Secure Your Business From

1. Phishing Attacks:

Phishing is one of the finest and common attacks attempted by hackers in today’s time. This is the kind of attack where a hacker uses an anonymous identity to trick someone into providing personal information and downloading malware. The reason is the high levels of interaction humans have with digital communication.

You know how difficult it is to maintain a bunch of emails and messages in a day. This means often office employees receive such a large number of emails and messages. That’s why at the end of the day, when the mind becomes tired, humans used to make a bad decision, and when they feel overtime at work.

You cannot think about what hackers can do at this time. Yes, they know this time and that’s why to choose a specific timeframe to bombard employees with fake emails and all. After this, a hacker only needs one employee to make a mistake to ruin a business’s integrity.

What’s the Solution?

The first and foremost thing you can do is watching for unusual emails and electronic messages. So make sure you avoid those messages and emails.

The second thing is to make sure to not give any kind of sensitive information in response to the emails. They may give you a link to click and ask for personal information. All you have to is assure yourself by contacting them and asking them about the message.

The last and most important thing you can do is install anti-phishing toolbars on internet browsers. This will help you alert if sites contain phishing information.

2. Malware:

As the name suggests, malware is malicious software. In this attack, attackers create malicious software that is downloaded on victim’s computers without their knowledge, to get unauthorized access to user’s sensitive information, or ruin the system, take revenge, or for money gains. This means a kind of stealing, deleting, or encrypting data activity.

There are many types of malware attacks such as viruses, worms, spyware, keyloggers, and Trojan horses. According to research, malware is one of the expensive attacks that cost up to $2.6 million to victims.  Malware is shared through physical hard drives, USB external drives, or internet downloads.

What’s the solution?

One of the best and great ways for any organization can reduce the chances and prevent such attacks is by using a cybersecurity solution that can scan and identify malware instantly.

3. Ransomware:

Ransomware is a specific type of malware that collects and encrypts data and devices on a network, preventing user access. This means as a name suggests, it involves a hacker locking the victim’s computer or files and holding this information for ransom. This spread through phishing emails or unknowingly visiting an infected website.

Ransomware attacks can awake your IT professionals, security engineers, and administrators at night. Attacks are becoming more frequent and their effects more widespread. It is devastating due to the difficulty in recovering affected data.

What’s the solution?

There’s a solution to prevent Ransomware attacks from attacking your company. With IP patterning and threat intelligence groups, you can detect activity from certain known Ransomware sites.

4. SQL injection:

This attack is also known as SQLI. It is a kind of attack that employs malicious code to manipulate databases to access information. This may include plenty of items such as private customer details, user lists, or company data.

The attack can have devastating effects on a business like Ransomware. Hacker’s uses to attempt SQLI attack to steal data, delete entire tables, access unauthorized viewing of user lists, and gain administrative access to the database. This can harm your business because you have to lose customer trust in case personal information is stolen.  Hence, it can be used to attack any SQL database, and often hackers target websites.

What’s the solution?

The best way to prevent SQL injection attacks is input validation, which is the practice of writing code with data flow analysis and security code audit perfumed by M-connect Media that can identify illegitimate user inputs.

5. Social Engineering Attacks:

This attack completely relies on human or social interaction rather than just bots entering a computer through the internet.  This is the reason social engineering is the biggest security risk nowadays.

According to some reports it is estimated that 93% of business data breaches come from employees unknowingly engaging with a social engineering attack. An attack occurs when a hacker tricks someone to provide them sensitive information or access to the software.

Because it depends on human interaction, social engineering attacks play on a person’s emotions. One of the common tricks is to have someone think they are helping people in their need.

What’s the solution?

Some companies are providing training to their staff on how to identify social engineering attacks and strategies. It is also essential for a business to have proper flow in place when working with sensitive data.

What you can do is restrict your employees to share company usernames or passwords digitally. If someone forgets a password, they should call a co-worker instead of emailing them.

Conclusion:

The world is constantly evolving as you can see the development and new technology every day. While having everything up-to-date, it is still important to know that today’s hackers target human behavior through social engineering hacks.

In these types of cyber-attacks guide, we have listed possible Cyber Attacks that have been attempted by hackers and solutions to secure and prevent you from such hacker’s trap.

Meanwhile, cybersecurity is all you need for your business from getting hacked and attacked. If you still have doubts, then consult our experts to get yourself cleared. We at M-connect Media have a team of people and security experts who can help you guide on this.