With the ever-growing technology, businesses that embrace new IT solutions and technologies also pose new security threats. The threats are becoming more complex, subtle, and sophisticated as cybercrime gets more professionalized. Cyber threat actors constantly come up with, create, and update solutions that can be used to get around even the most advanced cyber security measures.
Due to the interaction of all these factors, businesses now face more serious cyber threats than ever before. When compared to 2021, cyber attacks increased by 38% in 2022. As cyber threat actors refine their techniques, attacks will become considerably more frequent, and organizations will meet new and scarier cyber threats. Below mentioned are a few types of cyber-attacks faced by people on the internet today:
Table of Contents
1. Mobile Malware
With the increased use of mobile devices, mobile malware has emerged as a growing threat. Both legal and unauthorized app stores now have a higher prevalence of mobile malware, which frequently masquerades as trusted and reliable apps like games, flashlights, and QR code scanners.
The number of efforts to infect users’ mobile devices has surged, ranging from malicious software to cracked and personalized versions of legitimate apps. Cybercriminals are selling harmful APKs, which are unapproved versions of software, through direct downloads and third-party app shops. These apps are designed to spread malware to employee smartphones using name recognition.
2. Ransomware Extortion
Ransomware’s forerunner was malware that aimed to steal money by encrypting data. Attackers might prohibit authorized users from accessing the data by encrypting it, and then demand a ransom to unlock it. However, the prevalence of ransomware threats has prompted specialized security research that looks for and removes these threats.
Companies have the option to restore from backups without paying the ransom since the process of encrypting every file on a target machine is time-consuming, making it feasible to save some data by terminating the infection before data is encrypted.
3. Threats From Unaffiliated Clouds
Businesses are increasingly adopting cloud computing, and this choice has significant security implications. Due to a number of factors, such as lack of expertise with cloud security best practices, the cloud shared security architecture, and others, cloud settings may be more vulnerable to attack than on-premises infrastructure. Cloud service providers are now being targeted by hackers, who are also increasingly leveraging new vulnerabilities to attack cloud infrastructure.
By concentrating their attacks on cloud service providers and cloud solutions, cybercriminals might gain access to the confidential information of their clients and perhaps even their IT infrastructure. By taking advantage of the trust relationships that exist between businesses and the service providers that conduct assaults, attackers can greatly increase the breadth and impact of their attacks.
4. Denial of Service
An assault known as a denial of service (DoS) prevents a computer or network from responding by bombarding it with requests. The same technique is used in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) assault, which targets a computer network. Cyber attackers frequently use flood attacks to thwart the “handshake” procedure and launch a DoS. There are a variety of additional techniques that could be used, and some hackers take advantage of networks being down to launch further attacks.
According to Jeff Melnick of Netwrix, a provider of information technology security tools, a botnet is a sort of DDoS in which a hacker can control millions of infected machines. Zombie systems and botnets both aim at and overwhelm a target’s processing power. The sites of botnets vary geographically, making them difficult to track.
5. Phishing Attacks
Almost everyone uses Gmail, a service provided by Google, for both personal and business purposes. Now that the platform has identified these emails as a risk to the security of your data, you can find them in a spam folder anytime you check your mail account. These spam emails contain hundreds of phishing attacks, which your mailing partner has identified and warned you about in order to protect you from potential online threats.
However, a few of the communications do make it to your inbox, where you might find a trap. Phishing assaults, a kind of social engineering attack, primarily aim to steal users’ login passwords and credit card information. Unlike ransomware, the hacker in this case benefits from the information.
6. Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Attacks
Digital currency or wallets are one of the most popular targets for hackers, which has led to several problems with data protection and cyber security. The various blockchain attacks Due to their high susceptibility to digital wallets, Eclipse, Poly, DDOS, and Sybil made headlines. This is the primary driver behind blockchain technology’s efforts to use workable solutions to increase the security of its cloud.
Hackers allegedly forced the BitMart exchange to lose $150 million, making it nearly impossible for them to recover the money from its investors, according to a December 2021 BBC article. The Fincen study also showed that 177 different convertible currency digital wallet addresses were used in ransomware attacks. Therefore, safeguarding the information of their investors from such risks presents a significant cyber security challenge for market regulators.
7. The Man-In The Middle Attack
A man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack occurs when hackers insert themselves into a two-party transaction. Cisco claims that after causing traffic to be disrupted, they can filter and capture data. MITM attacks commonly occur when a visitor uses an unprotected public Wi-Fi network. Attackers block access to the visitor and the network before using malware to install dangerous software and get access to data.
8. Wipers and Destructive Malware
Even though ransomware and data breaches are some of the most obvious risks to corporate data protection, wipers, and other destructive malware can have even more negative effects on businesses. Instead of accessing the data or demanding a ransom in exchange for its recovery, wipers entirely destroy the data.
Wipers, which had previously been quite uncommon, experienced a return in 2022. Numerous families of wipers have been produced and used against Ukraine as part of its conflict with Russia. Other countries, like Iran and Albania, have also been the target of destructive cyber attacks, proving how common hacktivism and cyber warfare are as tools.
9. Weaponization of Functional Instruments
It can be difficult to distinguish between safe system administration and penetration testing tools and malicious software. Frequently, functionality that hackers would include in their malware is already present in the operating systems of their targets or is accessible through trustworthy tools that are unlikely to be flagged as malware by signature-based detection software.
This has been used by cyber threat actors more and more to “live off the land” during their attacks. They reduce their risk of being discovered and raise the likelihood that their attack would be successful by making use of authorized tools and built-in features. Additionally, the use of current solutions can aid in scaling attack campaigns and enable cybercriminals to employ cutting-edge hacking tools.
10. AI Attacks
In 2023, AI use by consumers and organizations is expected to increase significantly. This might be good or bad for cyber security. In the day-to-day work of security teams, AI may support analysts in security operations centers, locate and stop threats, and monitor and find fraud. Threat actors may also use AI improperly.
Attackers can use malware to evaluate the efficacy of AI, taint AI models with false data, and discover legitimate business AI usage to make their attacks more effective. Artificial intelligence-enabled attacks like deep fakes and others are improving the realism of social engineering methods.
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