Top 10 Cybersecurity Threats You Must Know

MALWARE

Malware tops the list of cybersecurity threats. Malware is hard to detect and has constant access to the back door of a device. The attackers can control the device remotely and can steal data. A whopping 91% of cyberattacks start with a phishing email, so phishing and malware frequently remain closely connected. Once malware is installed, it can spectate all the user activities, send confidential information to the attacker, help the attacker in entering other targets in the network, it can cause the user’s device to engage in the network infected by the attackers.

Solutions For Malware Attacks

• Security Software: High-level, updated antivirus and anti-malware software is an unquestionable requirement for employee devices.
• System Updates: Since cybersecurity is ever-evolving, it very essential to update the anti-malware software from time to time.
• Network Security: Networks should be monitored routinely to recognize vulnerable parts and scan for malware. Security should be updated regularly to reduce cyber risk.
• Employee Training and Awareness: Information security breaches are many times the aftermath of human mistakes. Training the employees about malware and how it enters your PCs will help them with figuring out the potential risks and attempts of malware attacks.

DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK(DDoS)

Next on the list of Cybersecurity threats we have on the list is DoS or DDoS. The goal of a denial of service (DoS) attack is to overpower the resources of a targeted system and prompt it to stop working, denying access to users. DDoS is a variation of DoS where attackers compromise countless PCs or different devices, and use them in a planned assault against the targeted operating system.

DDoS attackers are in many cases utilized in a mix with other cyber threats. These attacks might send off a denial of service to catch the attention of the safety crew and create disarray, while they do more muted attacks pointed toward taking information or causing other harm.

Solutions for Distributed Denial of Service Attack

• Broaden your bandwidth: On the off chance that DDoS is making a traffic jam in your network, one method for making that traffic jam less extreme is to broaden the pathway. By adding more bandwidth, your association will want to ingest more to retain a bigger volume of traffic. However, this arrangement won’t shut down all DDoS assaults.
• Use anti-DDOS hardware: DDoS attacks have been around for some time and a few sorts of assaults are extremely normal. There are a lot of products that are ready to reduce or repel certain protocols and application threats, for instance. It is additionally essential to solidify the IT foundation by changing settings, eliminating unused ports, and empowering breaks for somewhat open connections.
• Move to the cloud: While this will not eliminate DDoS attacks, moving to the cloud can reduce the attacks to some extent. The cloud has a broader bandwidth than on-site resources, for instance, and the idea of the cloud implies numerous servers are not situated in the same place.
• Load Balancer: Load Balancer blocks numerous common DDoS attackers, for example, SYN floods or UDP reflection assaults, safeguarding your application from the assault. Load Balancer naturally scales to assimilate the extra traffic when these sorts of threats are detected.

INSIDER THREATS

Cybersecurity threats can be of insider nature as well. Many individuals inside your organization have access to sensitive information. Whether current or ex-employees, partners, or vendors, 25% of information breaches come from insider threats. Threat agents act on their greed or some act out of bitterness. One way or the other, it can cause your organization great harm if they get access to sensitive information.

Insider dangers are very difficult to handle— they are based on human instinct and do not follow a definite pattern. Most insider threats are roused by monetary profit, albeit different explanations behind members taking part in this conduct exist.

Solutions for Insider Threats

• Constant Monitoring: Constant monitoring of the employees’ activities can help in knowing what they are doing. Machine learning and behavior analytics can help in getting what data the employees have access to, this way it becomes easier to mark any unusual activity.
• Password Policy and Account Management: Every user must enter the systems by entering their credential; every user must have a unique user ID and password. Organizations must have a password policy and should follow account management best practices.
• Segregation of duties: Send role-based access controls and arrange Group Policy to keep employees from accessing information and services that are not needed for their positions, and guarantee that workers in director jobs have discrete, unique login accounts for their administrative activities.

SOCIAL ENGINEERING

Cybercriminals frequently need to acquire the trust of their victims, so they can extract the data they need to finish the transaction. They make personas and virtual profiles to lay out fake contacts with their targets. They then, at that point, influence these connections to accomplish their motives; phishing and introducing malware to disrupt business endeavors or receive monetary rewards.

Any type of social interaction that is designed with the ultimate objective of creating a business can be named social engineering. This prepping system can fool employees into committing human errors and give them access to attackers into the organization’s network and information.

Solutions for Social Engineering

• Multifactor Authentication: Do not just rely on a single authentication factor. Passwords can provide security but are also not so hard to crack, hence, attackers can have access to your account. So, it is very important to authenticate yourselves while accessing the account. Multifactor authentication such as OTP, biometric access, and, security questions are necessary for securing your account.
• Penetration Testing: The best approach among the ways of forestalling social engineering attackers is directing a pen test to distinguish an attempt to take advantage of any vulnerabilities in the organization. If your pen-tester prevails with regards to imperiling your security system, you can distinguish which system or employees you want to focus on safeguarding as well as the kinds of social designing attacks the organization might prone to.
• Update Security Patches: Cybercriminals are for the most part searching for shortcomings in your application, software, or security system to accomplish unapproved admittance to your information. As a preventive measure, consistently keep up with your security patches and keep your web browsers and system fully updated.

MAN IN THE MIDDLE ATTACK

Man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) are a common type of cybersecurity attack that allows attackers to eavesdrop on the communication between two targets. The attack takes place between two legitimately communicating hosts, allowing the attacker to “listen” to a conversation they should normally not be able to listen to, hence the name “man-in-the-middle.”

When users and devices access a far-off system over the internet, they expect they are directly talking to the server of the targeted security system. In a Man-in-the-Middle attack, attackers break this presumption, setting in between the user and the targeted system.

Solution for Man-in-the-middle Attack

• Strong Encryption: Strong encryption methods for a system on wireless access points block illicit users from gaining access to your organization’s network. A frail encryption system can permit a hacker to brute-force into your organization’s system and start a man-in-the-middle attack. The more strong the encryption mechanisms, the more secure is your network.
• Public Key Authentication: Most commonly man-in-the-middle attacks involve spoofing or session hijacking. This is why using public key-based authentication such as RSA or Diffie–Hellman can be used to provide layered security so that you can be sure that the things you are communicating are the things you want to be communicating with.
• HTTPS: HTTPS can be used over HTTP for safer communication, using a public-private key exchange. This keeps an attacker from having any use of the information he might be seeking for. Websites must only have HTTPS and not give HTTP alternatives. Users can install browser plugins to enforce always using HTTPS on requests
• Virtual Private Network (VPN): VPNs can be utilized to establish a secure environment for confidential information inside a local area network. They use key-based encryption to make a subnet for a more secure system. Because of VPN, even if an attacker gets access to your organization’s network, he will be unable to break the traffic in the VPN.

PHISHING

Phishing is one of the most common and reported cybercrime. Phishing results in thousands of financial and reputational losses to businesses. The objective is to take sensitive information and, for example, login or credit card details, and deceive people into installing malware. Phishing can detach security controls while attackers peruse the organization’s information without being detected.

Attackers send fake correspondence that appears to come from a legitimate source, ordinarily through email. The email might encourage users to click on a link sent by attackers, driving them to provide sensitive information to the assailant or expose themselves to malicious content. Phishing messages might incorporate an email attachment contaminated with malware.

Solutions for Phishing

• Firewalls: Advanced firewalls act as a barrier between you, your PC, and outside threats. There are two types of firewalls you should use; a desktop firewall and s network-based firewall. When both types are used together, can extraordinarily mitigate the phishing attack.
• Anti-Phishing Tool Bar: You can customize your web browser with an anti-phishing toolbar. Such toolbars run quick checks on the websites that you are visiting and compare them with arrangements of known phishing sites. On the off chance that you coincidentally find a malicious site, the toolbar will alarm you about it. This is only another layer of security against phishing frauds.

SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACKS

A supply chain attack is when attackers take advantage of the weakness of an external supplier’s security system to get access to your organization’s network.

The supply chain is the network of people, organizations, assets, activities, and technologies engaged with the creation and selling of a product or service. A supply chain attack takes advantage of the trust that your organization has with third parties such as vendors, and partners, especially during updates and patching.

Solutions For Supply Chain Attacks

• Honeytokens: A honey token is an information that looks appealing to cyber crooks but that information is useless. All things considered, a “honey” asset is a phony IT asset made and situated in your company’s system to get the attackers to go after it. We can say that honeytoken is somewhat similar to honeypots.
• Access Management: Privileged accounts have an access to critical assets and sensitive information. At the point when a privileged account is found, confidential information access endeavors. To get a hold of sensitive information attackers will most likely try to get access to these accounts. A strong privilege access management framework will help in reducing the risk of this common attack and mitigates the supply chain attacks.

RANSOMWARE

This type of malware can bring about disastrous business misfortunes. Once the malware is in your framework, it secures it and denies you admittance to confidential information until you pay a ransom to recover your critical data and recapture control of your systems.

Ransomware leaves organizations with a difficult decision — pay the hackers or lose the information and access. Many organizations decide to pay the hackers, however in any event, when your pay the ransom, there is no guarantee that you can receive access to your data.

Solutions for Ransomware

• Incident Response Plan: Prepare to attempt to guarantee business continuity even with an attack. Test your incident response plan and procedures and detect vulnerabilities present in the system so that you can update the plan before an actual attack.
• Backup: Make sure that your data is backed up and do not attach it to your company’s network. This will make it difficult for the attackers to access it if it’s stored separately.
• Regularly Update your System: Attackers will find vulnerabilities in your company’s security system if it’s not regularly updated.

Business Account Compromise

Business account compromise is one of the most expensive cybercrimes. It happens when attackers compromise business messages to fraud your organization. The process begins with attackers hacking into your company’s security system to get data about the payment system. Then they trick the employees and manipulate them to make payments to attackers’ bank accounts instead of the real source.

False payment requests can be challenging to identify, as they are almost identical to genuine requests. Attackers might make minor changes to email addresses, use malware, or send phishing emails to gain their victim’s trust. BAC can result in massive financial damage to businesses, and it can take months for payment amounts to be traced and returned.

Solution for Business Account Compromise

• Strong Password: Employees should use a strong password with 8-10 characters and they should regularly update their password. They should refrain from using simple things such as birthdates, pet names, etc. because it will easy for the attackers to crack the password.
• Verification: Telephonic or in-person confirmation is necessary when a payment demand is made. Address any changes to accounts or transactions or payment processes straightforwardly with the recipient. Browse all email addresses cautiously even for minor changes.
• Effective Software: Employees should use anti-virus, anti-spoofing, and firewalls and also regularly them.

DATA EXFILTRATION

Data exfiltration alludes to any illicit information expulsion from individual or business devices. This process can be accidental or intentional but it still is unlawful and unauthorized. It can include transitioning, theft, or leaking information and lead to extreme reputational and monetary harm.

Intentional attempts to exfiltrate information include many of the previously mentioned dangers, including phishing and social engineering. To detect whether data exfiltration is happening in your company, you should have tools to monitor malicious traffic all the time.

Solution for Data Exfiltration

• Threat Management: Solid threat management plan helps to monitor who has the access to the data and data usage.
• Keystore Logging: Checking the keystrokes on a user’s machine helps you to track unauthorized data in transit and pinpoint the expected human source.
• Firewall: Installing a firewall can help in filtering traffic and blocking malicious traffic.