Cybercrime is big business, and it is on the rise across the world. With the financial impact of cybercrime projected to top $6 trillion by the end of 2021, now is the time to make sure you are aware of the most common cyberthreats, so you can protect yourself and your business from the potential fallout.
While many people may believe that cybercriminals mostly target large corporations and governments, if you think you have low odds of being the victim of a cybercrime, you couldn’t be more wrong. With data and information being one of the most valuable assets today, malicious actors can, and will, target anyone to gain benefit in any way they can. And here’s how you can be targeted…
Identity Theft
Identity theft, which is also known as credential theft, is when a cybercriminal steals your identity to gain access to your online life – whether it be your professional or private life. The minute a threat actor is able to successfully access your accounts, the real terror and damage begin. From this point, the attacker can move through your systems with ease, changing passwords, downloading data, holding your data to ransom, or even wiping the data and backups completely, which can be devastating on an individual level, but completely catastrophic on a corporate level. What starts as an individual attack, though, can quickly turn into a large-scale disaster with multiple victims and crippling and sometimes irreparable damage.
Cybercriminals are crafty, and they are becoming craftier by the minute – especially when it comes to corporate breaches. Corporate attacks can often start with an employee’s or business associate’s social media page and once accessed, the attacker will continue to assume identities up the chain of command until an administrative role can be assumed, and the systems locked to all employees.
Ransomware
Ransomware is the most common attack on the cybercrime list these days with the FBI announcing they are currently investigating roughly 100 different types of ransomware that have been responsible for multiple attacks in America. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that can block access to or encrypt the target’s files. Once the files have been compromised, payment is demanded by the attacker to unlock or decrypt the hostage files.
This can create immediate and lasting damage to the victim that can go beyond just financial loss. A ransomware attack has the potential to destroy reputations, and this can happen even if the ransom is paid because there is no guarantee that the threat actor will release the data unharmed.
Endpoint vulnerabilities
With remote work becoming the norm for many businesses, endpoints are more vulnerable than ever. Without the firewall and closed network protection offered by the corporate network, an important security layer is lost, and cybercriminals know it. Endpoints that use unsecured VPNs, have no multifactor authentication enabled or are unpatched allow cybercriminals to access off-network systems.
Cloud Security Misconfigurations
With a lot of businesses migrating to the cloud to guarantee business continuity, it is important that cloud security configurations are done correctly to maintain the highest level of security. As misconfigurations are a common reason for security breaches, and this is likely to increase if businesses remain unaware of the cloud security configurations. Many businesses neglect to configure their cloud security to suit their business and data requirements but failing to do so could potentially leave them at risk.
DDoS Attacks
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are one of the most common types of cyberattacks. They are typically carried out by using botnets to overwhelm servers with requests so that they cannot respond properly and ultimately crash. This can be done for a variety of reasons, from making a political statement to simply causing inconvenience for an organization or individual. One effective way to mitigate an attack is to implement strong spam and malware filters at all entry points into your network. Another strategy is to reduce the number of services you offer your customers while increasing security features on those that remain in service.
Keep your critical data safe and secure
Your critical data is important in more ways than you realize, and it’s important that you do what you can to keep it secure. Solzorro can help – call the team today to see how they can secure your business.
