Because of various digital devices and the internet to support them, life has become far more comfortable today. Everything good has a negative side effect, and the digital world is no exception. The internet has brought about wonderful changes in our lives today, but it also poses a significant problem in terms of data security. This leads to cyber assaults. In this post, we will look at the many forms of cyber assaults and how they might be avoided.
What is Cyber Attack?
We will first guide you through a cyber attack before moving on to the various sorts of cyber attacks. A cyber attack occurs when a third party gains illegal system/network access. A hacker/attacker is someone who perpetrates a cyberattack.
Cyber-attacks have a number of harmful consequences. When an attack is carried out, it might result in data breaches, which can result in data loss or manipulation. Organizations suffer financial losses, consumer trust suffers, and reputations suffer. We employ cybersecurity to prevent cyberattacks. Cybersecurity is the process of preventing unauthorized digital access to networks, computer systems, and their components.
Types of Cyber Attack
In today’s society, there are several types of cyber assaults. Knowing the various forms of cyberattacks makes it simpler to safeguard our networks and systems from them. We will look closely at the top 10 cyber-attacks that, depending on the magnitude, might impact a person or a major corporation.
Let us begin with the various sorts of cyberattacks on our list:
1. Malware Attack
This is a sort of cyberattack that is rather widespread. Malware is a term that refers to harmful software viruses such as worms, spyware, ransomware, adware, and trojans.
The trojan infection masquerades as legal software. Spyware is software that takes all of your personal data without your awareness, whereas Ransomware prevents access to the network’s vital components. Adware is software that shows advertising information on a user’s screen, such as banners.
Malware infiltrates a network by exploiting a vulnerability. When a user opens a harmful link, an email attachment is downloaded, or an infected pen drive is utilized.
2. Phishing Attack
Phishing attacks are one of the most common forms of cyberattacks. It is a sort of social engineering attack in which the attacker poses as a trusted contact and sends the victim bogus emails.
Without realizing it, the victim opens the email and clicks on the malicious link or opens the attachment. As a result, attackers obtain access to sensitive information and account credentials. A phishing attack may also be used to install malware.
3. Password Attack
It is a type of attack in which a hacker cracks your password using numerous password cracking applications and tools such as Aircrack, Cain, Abel, John the Ripper, Hashcat, and others. Password assaults are classified into three types: brute force attacks, dictionary attacks, and keylogger attacks.
4. Man-in-the-Middle Attack
A Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) assault is sometimes referred to as an eavesdropping attack. In this attack, an attacker intercedes between two parties, i.e., the attacker hijacks the session between a client and a host. Hackers steal and modify data in this manner.
The client-server communication has been broken off, as seen here, and the communication channel now flows through the hacker.
5. SQL Injection Attack
When a hacker manipulates a conventional SQL query on a database-driven website, a Structured Query Language (SQL) injection attack occurs. It is done out by injecting malicious code into a vulnerable website search box, causing the server to divulge sensitive information.
As a result, the attacker may read, update, and remove tables in the databases. Through this, attackers might even obtain administrative powers.
6. Denial-of-Service Attack
A Denial-of-Service Attack poses a considerable risk to businesses. In this scenario, attackers target systems, servers, or networks and flood them with traffic in order to deplete their resources and bandwidth.
When this happens, the servers become overburdened with incoming requests, causing the website it hosts to go down or slow down. As a result, valid service inquiries go unanswered.
When attackers utilize numerous hacked systems to execute this assault, it is also known as a DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attack.
7. Insider Threat
An internal danger, as the name implies, involves an insider rather than a third party. In such a circumstance, it may be someone from within the company who knows everything about it. Insider threats have the ability to wreak enormous harm.
Insider threats are common in small firms since employees have access to many accounts containing sensitive information. There are several reasons for this type of attack, including avarice, malice, or even negligence. Insider dangers are difficult to forecast and hence difficult to manage.
8. Cryptojacking
Cryptojacking is strongly associated with cryptocurrencies. Cryptojacking occurs when an attacker gains access to another person’s computer in order to mine bitcoin.
The attacker gains access via infecting a website or tricking the victim into clicking on a malicious link. For this, they also employ internet adverts with JavaScript code. Victims are unaware of this since the Crypto mining code operates in the background; the only indication they may see is a delay in execution.
9. Zero-Day Exploit
A Zero-Day Exploit occurs after the revelation of a network vulnerability; in most circumstances, there is no remedy for the issue. As a result, the vendor alerts consumers of the vulnerability; nevertheless, this information also reaches the attackers.
Depending on the vulnerability, the vendor or developer may take any length of time to resolve the problem. Meanwhile, attackers are focusing on the exposed vulnerability. They ensure that the vulnerability is exploited even before a patch or remedy is implemented.
10. Watering Hole Attack
The victim in this case is a specific group within an organization, area, etc. In such an assault, the attacker targets websites that the targeted group often visits. Websites are discovered by either closely observing the group or guessing.
Following that, the attackers infiltrate these websites with malware, which infects the computers of the victims. In such an assault, the virus targets the user’s personal information. In this case, the hacker may also gain remote access to the compromised machine.
How Can Cyber Attacks Be Prevented?
Although we examined multiple methods for preventing the various forms of cyberattacks, let us recap and look at a few personal recommendations that you may use to avoid a cyberattack in general.
- Change your passwords on a regular basis and use difficult-to-crack alphanumeric passwords. Avoid using too difficult passwords that you could forget. Do not use the same password more than once.
- Regularly update your operating system and programs. This is the first line of defense against any cyber assault. This will eliminate weaknesses that hackers frequently exploit. Use reputable and trusted anti-virus software.
- Use a firewall as well as other network security solutions such as intrusion detection systems, access control, application security, and so on.
- Open emails from unknown senders with caution. Examine the emails you receive for flaws and severe problems.
- Use a VPN service. This ensures that the traffic between the VPN server and your device is encrypted.
- Back up your data on a regular basis. Many security pros believe that having three copies of your data on two distinct media types and additional copy in an off-site location is preferable (cloud storage). As a result, even during a cyber assault, you may wipe your system’s data and restore it using a recently created backup.
- Employees should understand cybersecurity fundamentals. They must be aware of the various sorts of cyberattacks and how to respond to them.
- Authentication might be two-factor or multi-factor. To validate themselves, users must submit two distinct authentication factors using two-factor authentication. We call it multi-factor authentication when you are asked for more than two additional authentication methods in addition to your login and password. This is an important step in securing your account.
- Secure your Wi-Fi networks and stay away from public Wi-Fi without a VPN.
- Protect your mobile device, as it is a common target for cyberattacks. Install programs only from genuine and trusted sources, and keep your smartphone up to date.
These are the recommendations you must follow in order to safeguard your systems and networks against a cyber assault.