Cyber attacks are becoming increasingly common, with businesses and individuals falling victim to malicious hackers. Cybercrime has become an extremely popular and profitable form of crime, with cybercrime costing businesses billions of dollars a year. But how do these attacks happen?
At Oppos Cybersecurity Compliance, our experts have compiled some of the most common cyber attack techniques and their targets.
Why Do Cyber Attacks Happen?
Cyber attacks can happen for a variety of reasons. In some cases, attackers are motivated by financial gain, while in others they may be seeking to inflict political or other damage. Whatever the motivation, cyber attacks can have serious consequences for businesses, governments, and individuals.
In recent years, we have seen an increase in the number and severity of cyber attacks. This is due in part to the growing sophistication of attackers, as well as the increasing interconnectedness of our world. As more and more devices and systems are connected to the internet, there are more opportunities for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities.
No matter the reason, cyber attacks can have serious consequences. They can lead to the loss of sensitive data, financial damages, and even legal problems. That’s why it’s important to understand why these attacks happen and how to protect yourself from them.
Inside vs Outside Cyber Threats
The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving, and it can be hard to keep up with the latest threats. However, it’s important to be aware of the different types of cyber threats out there so you can protect your business from them.
There are two main areas where cyber threats originate from, you have insider threats and outside threats. Insider threats come from employees or other insiders who have access to your company’s network. These are usually disgruntled employees, members of hacking groups or people that are out to make money by compromising your organization. Outside threats come from external attackers who are trying to break into your network. These are your everyday hackers who have no special access to your company but are looking to hack your business for whatever reason.
Both inside and outside threats can be devastating to your business, so it’s important to be aware of both types of threats and take steps to protect your company from them.
What is Targeted by Cyber Attacks?
To better protect your company against cyber attacks, it’s important to understand what these attacks are targeting. When hackers are targetting a company their primary goal is to gain access to company data. This data can be leveraged in many ways to make a profit, this includes selling it on the web, using it to commit fraud, selling company secrets to competitors etc. Generally, there are three main types of data that are targeted by cybercriminals:
- Financial data: This includes credit card numbers, banking information, and other data that can be used to steal money.
- Personal data: This includes social security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers. This type of data can be used to steal identities.
- Confidential data: This includes trade secrets, proprietary information, and other sensitive data that can give criminals an advantage over your company.
By understanding what data is being targeted, you can better protect your company against these attacks.
What could happen if your business doesn’t have cyber security?
Common Types of Cyber Attacks
Brute Force Attacks
A brute force attack consists of an attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases in an attempt to guess the correct password. It’s appropriately named brute force because it doesn’t use any special technique to guess the right password, it simply checks all possible password combinations hoping to guess the correct one.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
This is a type of injection attack that enables attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. This is typically done by an attacker entering malicious code into an input form on a website or web application.
Denial-of-Service Attacks (DoS)
A denial of service attack is a cyber attack where the attacker attempts to make a machine or network resource unavailable to it’s intended users. This is done by flooding the machine with fraudulent communications in an attempt to overload the device and consume all it’s resources.
Email Spoofing
This is the creation of an email message that uses a forged sender address. This allows people to impersonate others and trick users into divulging information, performing actions on their behalf or perform other actions harmful to the organization.
Phishing
This is a form of social engineering where attacks trick people into revealing sensitive information or downloading malware. Typically this is done in the form of an email but can also include text messages and voice communications.
Man-in-the-Middle
This is where an attacker positions themself between two people having a conversation. The attacker can then eavesdrop on the conversation to steal information or impersonate one of the parties in the conversation to achieve an end goal.
Man-in-the-Browser
In this attack the hacker installs a trojan horse browser on the victim’s computer. This fake browser is capable of modifying the user’s web transactions. Allowing the attacker to eavesdrop, steal data or tamper with the users sessions.
Buffer Overflows
This is type of application based attack where too much data is written to a web application. While attempting to write data to a buffer, the data overruns the buffer’s boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations. An attacker can use this exploit to execute code and write data to memory outside of what is intended for the application.
Social Engineering
This is a broad term that refers to using psychological manipulation to trick users into performing actions that can lead to a data breach. This can be done online or in person. The idea is that rather than trying to circumvent a technical control, attackers attempt to manipulate a human user in order to gain access to the company or it’s data.
Spyware
This is a type of malware that aims to gather information about a person or an organization. Typically this type of malware will remain on a system for a long time, gathering information and sending that information back to the attacker.
Privilege Escalation
This is a type of attack where an attacker looks to go from their normal user permissions to achieve a higher level of permissions than they should have access to. For example, if you login to a computer as a guest user but you are able to create an admin level account for yourself then you have escalated your privileges on that machine.
Viruses
A computer virus is a type of computer program that replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting it’s own code into those programs. This type of malware has the ability to “infect” other programs.
Whaling Attacks
This is a type of phishing attack that focuses on executive level employees. For example CEOs, CISOs, CFOs etc. These are high-profile targets, which makes whaling attacks much more dangerous than regular phishing attacks.
Worms
A computer worm is a type of malware that is able to replace itself and spread to other computers on the network. While malware like viruses require other programs to replicate, a computer worm can replicate all on it’s own. While on one machine, it will use it’s host to scan and infect other computer systems.
Ransomware
This is one of the most profitable types of cyber attacks. Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts all data on the target machine or network. Once the data is encrypted the hacker can charge the victim a ransom to get their information back.
Trojan Horses
This is a type of malware that pretends to be a legitimate application in order to trick users into downloading and executing. For example, if you ever got a pop telling you that your system has been infected with malware and telling you to download there anti-virus solution, then you have probably encountered a trojan horse.
SQL Injection
This is a type of injection-based attack that users the SQL language. In this type of attack, the attacker inserts malicious code (SQL queries) into an input form. If the input is not properly filtered than these queries will be executed by the backend database and this can lead to data breaches.
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How to Detect Cyber Attacks
Cyber attacks are becoming more and more common, and they can have a serious impact on businesses of all sizes. In fact, a recent study by Symantec found that 43% of businesses have experienced a cyber attack in the past year.So how can you protect your business from these threats? The first step is to learn how to detect them. At it’s core the only way to detect a cyber attack is to pay attention to strange activity on your network. If you notice any unusual activity, such as strange traffic patterns or unusual login attempts, this may be a sign that your network is being targeted by an attacker. To detect these there are some important tools that you can use:
- IDS: An intrusion detection system (IDS) is a network security tool that monitors network traffic and flags suspicious activity. IDS systems can be used to detect a wide range of threats, including malware, DoS attacks, and unauthorized access.
- There are two main types of IDS systems: host-based and network-based. Host-based IDSs are installed on individual computers and network-based IDSs are deployed at key points in the network (e.g., at the gateway or firewall).
- Endpoint Protection: Endpoint protection software is a type of security software that is designed to protect individual devices, such as computers, laptops, and smartphones, from malware and other threats. This type of software is typically installed on devices that connect to a network, such as a corporate network or the internet. Endpoint protection software can be used to protect against a variety of threats, including viruses, spyware, and ransomware.
- UEBA: UEBA, or User and Entity Behavior Analytics, is a type of security solution that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect and investigate suspicious or anomalous activity within an organization. UEBA solutions are designed to complement traditional security solutions such as intrusion detection systems and firewalls, and can be used to detect a wide range of threats, including insider threats, data breaches, and cyber-attacks.
How Cyber Attacks Impact Your Business
Cyber attacks are a serious threat to businesses of all sizes. These attacks can result in the loss of sensitive data, financial losses, and damage to your company’s reputation. In some cases, cyber attacks can even lead to the loss of customer trust and business continuity.
It’s important to understand how cyber attacks can impact your business so that you can take steps to protect yourself. Here are some of the ways that cyber attacks can impact your business:
- Loss of sensitive data: Cyber attacks can lead to the loss of confidential data, such as customer information, financial data, and trade secrets. This loss of data can jeopardize your business operations and put your customers at risk.
- Financial losses: Cyber attacks can result in direct financial losses, such as the cost of repairing damaged systems or the cost of paying ransom to attackers. Companies can also face heavy fines depending on if they are deemed “at fault” for the data breach.
- Reputational Damage: Companies that have a history of multiple data breaches are at risk of developing a bad reputation as a business that can’t protect its customers’ data. Depending on the industry that you work in this may have a negative impact on your operations overall.
Conclusion
Determining how a cyber attack happens is the first step in developing a plan to prevent future attacks. Cyber attacks can happen through a variety of methods, including malware, phishing, and SQL injection. These attacks target common vulnerabilities, such as unpatched software, weak passwords, and social engineering.
Partnering with companies like Oppos who specialize in cybersecurity compliance may be beneficial for ensuring all security aspects are covered. If you have any questions or would like more information about how to prevent a cyber attack or ensure compliance, please don’t hesitate to contact Oppos today.
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Cyber Attacks FAQs
Cybersecurity attacks are caused when an attacker uses an exploit to take advantage of vulnerability in a company’s infrastructure.
Cyber attacks are performed by computer hackers, people with advanced knowledge of computer systems.
Cyber attacks are extremely common with hundreds or thousands of attacks being performed every day.
Cyber attacks can last for weeks or even months. On average they last around 314 before they are contained by the company.
China is currently the country most affected by cyber attacks.
