8 types of cybersecurity threats businesses face today

With advances in the digital era, the risks of cyber attacks have skyrocketed. As more data gets generated, more loopholes and cracks in security attract cyber attackers for various ill reasons.

A cyber attack can exhaust an organization to a great deal by stealing exclusive data leading to very high recovery expenses and loss of trust from clients, stakeholders or any other subject of the organization in question.

Security systems have often been the deciding factor to assign contracts and win over clients/sponsors. A robust security design ensures that cyber attackers cannot reach the client/large scale firm through the intermediary firm’s interface, which has often been the case in the past.

Thus, to brace yourself against the ill effects of cyber-attacks, your security system design should be such that it is able to ward off these primary types of cyber threats:

1. DoS and DDoS attacks
   Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attacks like TCP SYN food attack and teardrop attack are designed to overwhelm a system’s resources such that it is unable to process any further service requests. This is most often a sadistic attack where the attacker gains no information or access, but effectively renders the service useless. However, these attacks can be unleashed as an intermediary to stall the system in order to make way for more dangerous attacks.
2. Phishing
   Probably the most commonly spread attack, owing to widespread use of social media and mailing services which are its prime carriers. They spread with the help of misleading links which web surfers are encouraged to click. Clicking on these malicious links can divulge personal data to the attackers in no time! It is thus advised to beware of links from untrusted sources.
3. Malware
   If a user downloads a seemingly legitimate, but malicious, program through phishing or some other untrusted source, it will continue to execute its disguised purpose which can include anything ranging from spying the system to code manipulation without alerting the user, causing harmful long term effects to the system and organization involved.
4. Brute Force Attacks
   These attacks are generated by programs which try to generate passwords by the error and trial method. To brace oneself against such attacks, passwords must exceed the estimated strength-threshold by using appropriate characters and alphanumeric sequences. Also, regular modifications and varying passwords across different applications and systems help a great deal.
5. Man-in-the-Middle Attack
   This attack initiates when an attacker successfully lodges himself between a server and a client connection. The disguised presence can be manipulated to retrieve private data, intercept important connections, stall and impersonate participating entities.
6. Attack on devices connected to system network
   As firms grow to rely more on technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud computing and automation, they expose more of their exclusive data to several external devices which are connected to the network. Without proper monitoring and periodic human intervention, it is highly likely that important data will be compromised to potential hackers.
7. SQL Injections
   Database driven websites, if not secured with standard security designs can insert harmful SQL queries in the website code and read private data such as login details and transaction data. These can be prevented by monitoring permissions to the database and using prepared statements with parameterized inputs to implement the queries.
8. Ransomware
   One of the most dangerous threats looming out there, ransomware locks down entire systems when opened as a disguised software. The locks do not give in until the attackers are appeased with the demanded ransom price. Seldom, even after the ransom is delivered, the attackers choose to leave abruptly without unlocking the systems, leading to huge business loss and marred reputation.

A sound understanding of the attacking mechanism can enable one to successfully find loopholes and prevent the attacks effectively. In other words, it is of prime importance to know ways to hack the hacking mechanisms of efficient cyber attackers!

At Evolutyz, our cybersecurity experts ensure that a robust design is laid for securing your business data from potential hackers. Enable a competent security architecture to avoid looming dangers like the ones mentioned above and more and win yourself promising contracts and deals from clients and sponsors who will gain a strong trust on your service owing to the high-security standards.

Get Secure with Evolutyz now!