Cyberattacks are a set of actions carried out by cybercriminals who want to gain unauthorized access, steal data, or cause damage to computer networks, computers, and other computing systems.
They can be launched from any location, and cyber criminals may perform them as a group or an individual, using TTP (tactics, techniques, and procedures).
The people who launch those attacks are normally referred to as hackers, bad actors, threat actors, or cyber criminals. They normally focus on identifying weaknesses, problems, or vulnerabilities in computer systems and use them to further achieve their goals.
A cybercriminal may have different motivations when launching their attacks. Some perform those attacks for financial or personal gain, whereas others are basically hacktivists acting in the name of political or social causes. Whichever their reasons, it is advisable to regularly carry out network traffic analysis to prevent any form of cyberattacks.
How Cyberattacks Work
How cyberattacks work depends on specific kinds of cyberattacks. At its root, a cyberattack is an illegal activity, using computers as a hacker’s target or weapon.
This covers a vast of crimes, from identity theft to phishing emails, which affect people, organizations, and businesses.
Cyberattacks are a growing and expensive problem, which can greatly blow your business’s reputation, hiring, and profits.
Every day, cyberattacks are evolving. So companies should perform network traffic analysis and be alert every time to prevent those attacks.
Why a Cyberattack Happens
In addition to cybercrimes, a cyberattack may as well be linked to cyberterrorism or warfare, such as hacktivists. In simple terms, motivations will vary. And in those motivations, there are three major categories, including personal, political, and criminal.
Criminally motivated cybercrooks seek financial gain through business disruption, money theft, or data theft. Similarly, personally motivated attackers, like a former employee or disgruntled current worker, may take data, money, or just a mere opportunity to disrupt an organization’s system.
But primarily, they seek retribution. Socio-political motivated cybercrooks seek attention for their cause. Because of that, they usually make their cyberattacks known to the public. Other forms of cyberattack motivations may include spying, intellectual challenge, and espionage.
Sources of Cyberattacks
These attacks may come from different contexts, people, and places. Malicious actors may include terrorists, hackers, unhappy insiders, business competitors, industrial spies, and criminal organizations, just to name a few.
A nation-state is also another source of serious cyberattacks. There are various versions of nation-state cyberattacks. Some are aimed at disruptions, whereas others are basically espionage looking to learn the national secrets of another country.
Forms of Cyberattacks
Cyberattacks of generation VI and V have now become a reality for many businesses. Most cybercriminals are familiar with modern advancements in cybersecurity. So they have already adapted their tactics to defeat and circumvent traditional safeguards.
In order to prevent detection, cybercriminals use polymorphic and multi-vectored codes. For that reason, responding to and detecting threats has become more difficult than before.
According to cybersecurity experts, cybercrooks target an organization’s first line of defense. Securing remote workers in such an organization requires a better understanding of common cyber risks, which workers experience, and endpoint security solutions that can resolve, prevent, and detect those assaults.
Majorly, cyberattacks come in different types. A cybercriminal may use different techniques to launch cyberattacks, but the most popular ones include:
- Phishing
- Malware
- SQL injection
- Denial-of-service attack
- Man-in-the-middle attack
- DNS tunneling
- Zero-day exploit
How Serious Is a Cyberattack?
A cyberattack becomes more dangerous if it threatens important national infrastructures, from healthcare provision and transport networks to water and energy supply. Mostly, these attacks happen because of the increasing digitization of services, poor cybersecurity awareness, the complexity of supply chains, and changing nature of technological advancement.
Critical systems may have ‘zero-day’ weaknesses or vulnerabilities, which users and developers are unaware of. Hackers use them to build a back door into those systems, giving them illegal and privileged access.
Among the most challenging aspects of protecting against cybercriminals is the blurring of lines existing between national governments and corporations. Global tech organizations, such as Microsoft, make software, which operates important elements of national infrastructures in different countries. That means even a single point of weakness in operating systems has serious consequences.
Preventing Cyberattacks
These days, cybersecurity is more vital than ever. With the ever-growing threats, having strong security solutions is very important.
Perhaps you have heard of companies paying huge fines and going bankrupt because of a hack to their systems. Basically, there are too many cyber threats to ignore the risks, which may end up costing you a livelihood.
This is why prevention through Sangfor Technologies and other best practices is necessary. Using a firewall and anti-virus software is among the simplest and most powerful means of keeping every unwanted nuisance at bay. That is because the tool can filter all the incoming activities happening on your device and, simultaneously, identify every malicious content.
Whether you believe it or not, the attacks you may receive could be physical. This may have control over who is accessing your network. Someone may just walk into your business enterprise or office and plug in USB keys having an infected file, allowing them to access the entire network. This is why it is necessary to have control over who accesses your systems. Having perimeter security systems installed is a perfect way to put a stop to cyberattacks.
At the same time, train your workers. A cybercriminal may send a fraudulent email, pretending to be someone within your organization, and ask for access to some files or personal details. Links will look real, especially to untrained eyes, making it simple for them to fall into a cybercriminal’s trap. That is why training workers is imperative. The training may involve teaching your workers how to check links before clicking them and checking email addresses from the sender.
Closing Remarks!
Using the best defense mechanisms needs you to have a better understanding of what a cyberattack is and what it entails. You see, attackers have a lot of options, like malware infections, phishing, and DDoS assaults. This is why it is imperative to always be updated with ways of preventing such attacks from happening in the first place.