Understanding Cyber Security Threats

Suppose you look up from your screen for a minute and look around. How many devices can you see? Think about how things like your air-con, watches, tablets, PC, and mobiles work. How your security works, how the gate works, and how are people communicating around you? The term 'digital' has expanded from just the computer at work. Individuals rely on computers for the weather, general information, and even to take them from point A to point B.

On the one hand, this expansion with the use of technology has brought everything together, but it also has opened up opportunities for others to take advantage. With everyone's personal information, financial information, and schedules all digital, anybody with a little know-how, can now access this information and use it against you.

The fact is, nobody and no system is entirely immune from cyber-attacks and data breaches. But with the proper security in place, you can reduce the chances of them happening.

Who is behind the cyber-attacks? 

There are several reasons why an individual, a team, or a company might want to 'hack' or compromise a system. It could be for data, disrupting operations, or damaging information. Threats can come from various places with varying abilities, from script kiddies, hacktivists, criminal organisations, disgruntled employees with a little time on their hands all the way up to nation states.

The size and scale of breaches can also vary, from individual records to large scale breaches, In 2017, a total of 14.9 million Americans, along with 15.2 million British citizens, were compromised during the Equifax data breach. In addition, personal information and private records were leaked at the American Credit Bureau, making it one of the largest cybercrimes related to identity theft, a breach that will continue to impact individuals for their entire life.

What are the most common types of cyber-attacks?  

Malware 

Malware, or ‘malicious software,’ is software used to access your data . It can then transmit the data from your device to an external source such as a malicious endpoint, encrypt or render files to make them unusable (or in some cases both). It can also then spread through the network, damaging other devices as it goes. The most common types of malware include ransomware, trojans, viruses, worms, and spyware.

Users usually unintentionally install malware on their devices through a malicious website or an email attachment. Once installed, the malware often prevents the users device from operating as normal, can block access, and damage the system requiring it to be cleaned or even have the operating system reinstalled.

Phishing and spear phishing

Phishing is a type of social engineering. The specifics can vary but the general principle is that  an email is crafted pretending to be a genuine email,  the user then feels safe thinking they are with a trusted brand when actually it’s all fake. The user will then either click a link  where they will enter their log-in details or give sensitive information, not realizing they are passing their private information to an unknown and likely malicous actors. Alternatively they may open an attachment that has malware as covered above.

Usually, phishing emails use financial companies or online shopping branding to mask their content. However, users can avoid this by ensuring and checking that sender email addresses are correct and URLs correctly spelled, if in doubt the best defence is to access the website via a known trusted link for example halifax.co.uk and not click the links directly. 

Exploiting WiFi

As users become more remote, attackers are looking to take advantage of weaker network controls around WiFi networks. This can be based on public WiFi which should always be assumed as insecure, for example the network may be setup to send all traffic for inspection before being passed forward.

Also with home workers the security of the routers that the internet service provider give to end users is often very basic, the most recent devices normally do automatically update but older devices can be running outdated firmware with vulnerabilities.

We now also have issues with the amount of IoT devices on home networks that can act as a jump point to the rest of your network including work devices, many of these devices will create persistent connections to infrastructure that may itself be weak and could then allow the IoT device to access data on other devices within your network.

Other types of cyber-attacks 

There are also lesser-known ways to compromise a system, for example a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), whereby the hacker tries to make a website or service unavailable. Or exploiting application vulnerabilities such as a Structured Query Language (SQL) injection, where the cybercriminals try to access the underlying data through SQL commands. 

Individual devices that connect to the internet or other networks offer an access point for hackers. Reports from 2019 show that hackers are increasingly targeting smart home and internet of things (IoT) devices, such as smart TVs, voice assistants, connected baby monitors, and cell phones, to gain access, this is often possible to due the devices not being designed security and often not being patched for known common vulnerabilities.

The fact is cyber criminals and hackers are continuing to exploit and cause damage and inconvenience to individuals and organisations. It can be challenging for a single isolated team in charge of a business's entire infrastructure to keep up with the latest and do the relevant tests.

Outsourcing 

Cyber maturity is more of a journey than a destination because there are always ways to improve. It’s also not exactly straightforward to assess current cyber maturity levels and develop a roadmap for improvement from a subjective perspective. Partnering with a cyber security consultancy or managed service can help extensively test and analyse systems and applications to discover potential weaknesses and fix them before any cyber-attack occurs.  

At tmc3, we help businesses function safely amidst an exponential global rise in cybercrime. We’ve assisted businesses across the public and private sectors to ensure that their cyber security strategies are tailored to resist the most vicious cyber attacks around.

Our expert cyber security team has over 60 years of combined experience and specialises in the most stringent cyber security protocols across various industries.

Together with our suite of innovative cyber security products and solutions, our expert team can help you to understand the complexity of regulations and frameworks, improve your cyber maturity levels, and conduct intensive security testing that will help you to analyse your systems and applications – discovering weaknesses and fixing them before any cyber attack occurs.

We understand the value of information. And we protect it.

Get in touch with our team of Cyber Security and Information Security experts and find out how tmc3 can make a difference to your business with superior protection from cyber-attacks and malicious online threats.