Cyber threats are more common and protecting your business against these threats are very important to Techbox Managed IT Services. We offer several solutions that can prevent these attacks from encrypting and stealing your company data. Investment in cyber security is on the rise and Techbox can explain to you what vulnerabilities your network has and ways in order to protect you.

Types of cyber threats

Cyber threats come in three broad categories of intent. Attackers are after:

1. Financial gain
2. Disruption
3. Spying

Virtually all cyber threats fall into one of the above categories. In terms of attack techniques, malicious attackers have many options.

Here are ten common types of cyber threats:

1. Malware. Software that performs a malicious task on a target device or network, e.g. corrupting data or taking over a system.
2. Phishing. An email-borne attack that involves tricking the email recipient into disclosing confidential information or downloading malware by clicking on a hyperlink in the message.
3. Spear Phishing. A more sophisticated form of phishing where the attacker learns about the victim and impersonates someone he or she knows and trusts.
4. “Man in the Middle” (MitM) attack. Where an attacker establishes a position between the sender and recipient of electronic messages and intercepts them, perhaps changing them in transit. The sender and recipient believe they are communicating directly with one another.
5. Trojans. Trojan is a type of malware that enters a target system looking like one thing, e.g. a standard piece of software, but then lets out the malicious code once inside the host system.
6. Ransomware. An attack that involves encrypting data on the target system and demanding a ransom in exchange for letting the user have access to the data again. These attacks range from low-level nuisances to serious incidents like the attack on the NHS when data was encrypted.
7. Denial of Service attack or Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDoS). Where an attacker takes over many (perhaps thousands) of devices and uses them to invoke the functions of a target system, e.g. a website, causing it to crash from an overload of demand.
8. Attacks on IoT Devices. IoT devices like industrial sensors are vulnerable to multiple types of cyber threats. These include hackers taking over the device to make it part of a DDoS attack and unauthorized access to data being collected by the device. Given their numbers, geographic distribution and frequently out-of-date operating systems, IoT devices are a prime target for malicious actors.
9. Data Breaches. A data breach is a theft of data by a malicious actor. Motives for data breaches include crime (i.e. identity theft) and spying.
10. Malware on Mobile Apps. Mobile devices are vulnerable to malware attacks just like other computing hardware. Attackers may embed malware in app downloads, mobile websites or phishing emails and text messages. Once compromised, a mobile device can give the malicious actor access to personal information, location data, financial accounts and more.

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