Cyber attacks are on the rise. 32% of
businesses have identified cyber security breaches or attacks in the past 12
months.
But how do these attacks manifest themselves,
and what are the most common cyber threats to organisations today?
1) PHISHING
What is phishing?
Phishing is a form of social engineering where
a criminal hacker tries to trick the user into clicking a malicious link or
downloading an infected attachment or divulging sensitive or confidential
information.
2) RANSOMWARE
What is ransomware?
Ransomware is a type of malicious software
designed to deny access to files until, or threaten to publish the victim’s
data unless, a ransom is paid (although there is no guarantee that access will
be restored, or that the criminal hacker will destroy the data).
3) DDOS ATTACKS
What is a DDoS attack?
A DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack
attempts to disrupt normal web traffic and take a site offline by overwhelming
a system, server or network with more access requests than it can handle.
DDoS attacks typically serve one of two
purposes:
1) An act of revenge against an organisation.
2) A distraction that allows cyber criminals to
break into the organisation while it focuses on restoring its website.
4) COMPUTER VIRUSES
What is a computer virus?
A computer virus is a type of malicious code or
program written to alter the way a computer operates. Much like a flu virus, it
is designed to spread from one computer to another (but without the user’s
knowledge) by:
Opening
an infected email attachment;
Clicking an infected executable file;
Visiting an infected website;
Viewing an infected website advertisement; or
Plugging in infected removable storage devices (e.g. USBs).
5) ATTACK VECTORS
Attack vectors are used to gain access to a
computer or network in order to infect it with malware or harvest data.
There are four main types of attack vector:
Drive-by
A drive-by cyber attack targets a user through
their Internet browser, installing malware on their computer as soon as they
visit an infected website.
It can also happen when a user visits a
legitimate website that has been compromised by criminal hackers, either by
infecting them directly or redirecting them to a malicious site.
MITM (man in the middle)
An MITM attack is where an attacker alters the
communication between two users, impersonating both victims to manipulate them
and gain access to their data. The users are not aware that they are
communicating with an attacker rather than each other.
Zero-day attack
Outdated (unpatched) software often contains
vulnerabilities that criminal hackers can use to bring entire systems
down. Where they exploit a vulnerability made public before a patch or
solution has been rolled out by the developer, this is referred to as a
zero-day attack.
Patch management is one of the five basic
cyber security controls contained in the UK government’s Cyber Essentials
scheme.
SQL injection
A SQL (Structured Query Language) injection
occurs when an attacker inserts malicious code into a server that uses SQL (a
domain-specific language).
SQL injections are only successful when a
security vulnerability exists in an application’s software. Successful SQL
attacks force a server to provide access to or modify data.
