As technology evolves, so do the scope and sophistication of cyberattacks.
New threats arise every day, but while no two attacks are the same, criminals tend to use a similar set of strategies and exploits to compromise potentially promising targets. Unfortunately, small businesses are ideal targets because they often don’t have an adequate layer of protection to keep their data safe.
Understanding the most common types of threat out there is essential for educating your employees and protecting yourself from almost any eventuality.
Malware
Malware typically ends up on a computer when a user clicks a malicious link or email attachment, or unwittingly falls victim to a social engineering scam. Although antivirus software is crucial, it’s also important to remember that it’s a cure rather than a preventative. Malware also comes in many different forms, with one of the latest and most widespread threats coming in the form of ransomware designed to extort money out of victims.
To guard against malware, it’s essential to keep your systems up to date and have round-the-clock monitoring in place.
Phishing
Phishing scams are constantly on the rise, and they’re also the most common delivery method for malicious software. Sometimes, however, these scams don’t involve any malware at all. Instead, they rely on social engineering tactics to dupe victims into willingly giving away confidential information such as payment details or login credentials.
Most phishing scams arrive by email, sometimes from otherwise legitimate accounts that have been compromised. Others may occur over the phone, by SMS, or through a malicious website.
Denial of Service (DoS)
While denial of service attacks generally don’t pose a threat to your confidential data, they can be extremely disruptive, leading to unnecessary downtime and greatly decreased productivity. DoS attacks are primarily disruptive in nature, since they hog system resources and make online resources unavailable.
A DoS attack involves inundating a server with requests to overload it, making it inaccessible to legitimate requests. Oftentimes, these attacks are carried out by multiple computers to increase effectiveness in what are known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Session Hijacking
Session hijacking is a type of attack whereby a hacker gains access to data being transmitted between a computer and the internet.
One of the most common scenarios involves snoopers infiltrating communications carried out over an unsecured WiFi connection. This allows criminals to gain access to any data sent across the network, such as websites visited and login details entered. That’s why you should always use a VPN whenever you’re connecting to online resources, including web-based applications and websites.
Brute-Force Attacks
Brute-force attacks are among the most basic cybersecurity threats of all and, as such, they’re by far the easiest to prevent.
A brute-force attack involves using a specialized program to find passwords and encryption keys by trying all the possible combinations. Fortunately, you can easily stop brute-force attacks from being effective simply by using longer and more complex passwords and more powerful encryption algorithms.
For example, it would take one brute-force attack session billions of years, using all the world’s supercomputers combined, to crack a 128-bit encryption key.
IntelligISTM takes cybersecurity very seriously. We provide round-the-clock monitoring and reliable helpdesk services to ensure that your data is never left exposed. Call us today if you’re looking for a way to lock down your digital assets for good.
