Cyber-attacks are growing in severity and in numbers each year despite the best effort of security experts worldwide. Organizations small and large, government or non government are losing millions to bigger and bigger cyber-attacks. Wannacry, Notpetya, Melissa virus, Conficker, Shamoon are just a few out of a large list of successful cyber-attacks the world has seen. Cyber-attacks could be of more than one type, such as- Malware, Ransomware, Phishing, DDoS, Malvertising and Password attack. In this era of growing cyber-threat, significance of cyber-security is undeniable. Organizations are now spending millions on cyber-security to keep attackers at bay.
Source of cyber-attacks
A cyber-attack can be caused by an individual or a group of individuals such as a criminal hacker group. Cyber-attack could be state sponsored or can be caused by non state actors. Reason of a cyber-attack can also vary. It could be for money as in the case of ransomware attacks or it can be for crippling state infrastructure and utilities.
Types of cyber-attack
Malware: It stands for malicious software which is crafted to cause problems to a computer or network. A malware can be a virus or a worm or spyware, adware or trojan. Malware can infiltrate a system through a download or a malicious link or operating system vulnerabilities. Superfish adware, zeroaccess botnet, Cryptolocker trojan, Stuxnet worm are some of the biggest malware attacks that happened.
Ransomware: It is a type of attack in which the hacker gains access to the system and encrypts the data, and asks for money to decrypt it. Users of the system are effectively locked out. This type of attack can be very devastating if target is a critical utility. SimpleLocker, TeslaCrypt, NotPetya and WannCry are some of the biggest ransomware attacks.
Phishing: Cyber-criminals posing as a trusted third party send emails asking for username, passwords, Bank account details, credit card details and then use this data to carry out a theft or gain access to sensitive information. It is one of the oldest and most widespread form of cyber-attack. Users should be careful while reading emails and clicking on links to protect themselves against this form of cyber-attack.
DDoS: It stands for distributed denial of service attack. Multiple compromised systems as in a botnet are used by criminal hackers to flood a targeted server with traffic which overwhelms the system by using up all the bandwidth and system resources, leaving the server inaccessible to normal users. A DDoS attack can run for hours to days. Reason for a DDoS attack can vary from business competition to political. GitHub, CloudFlare and Spamhaus has suffered some of the biggest DDoS attack.
What is cyber-security
Cyber-security is the practice of keeping systems safe from cyber-attacks. Cyber-security is achieved through network security, application security, Information or data security and user training and awareness. Optimized people, process and technology is a pre requisite for successful deployment of cyber-security. Users must adhere to safe web practices such as carefulness about opening links and setting strong passwords and changing passwords regularly. Organizations must have well defined policy regarding cyber-security. Technology such as firewall, antivirus software, anti-malware must be competent and up to date.
Cyber-security in numbers
Cyber-security market will hit 300 billion dollar mark by 2024.
Cyber-attacks will cause 6 trillion dollar in damages by 2021.
A cyber-attack occurs every 39 second.
Cyber-security in numbers
Cyber-security market will hit 300 billion dollar mark by 2024.
Cyber-attacks will cause 6 trillion dollar in damages by 2021.
A cyber-attack occurs every 39 second.
Nearly half of all cyber-attacks target small businesses.
Around 230,000 malwares are created by criminal hackers everyday.
US cyber-security budget was 14.98 billion dollar in 2019 and may increase to 17.44 billion dollar in 2020.
Ransomware attacks will cost about 20 billion dollar by 2021.
Importance of cyber-security
In the era of Internet of Things more and more everyday objects are getting equipped with an IP address through which they can communicate with other objects. Apart from raising convenience level for users, this also creates growing opportunity for cyber-criminals to find a security vulnerability and launch an attack. In this increasingly connected world cyber-attacks are getting increasingly disastrous. Cyber-security is more relevant today than ever before. Strong cyber-security practices is a must for trouble free function in the world we are living today.
References:
1) https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-cybersecurity.html
2) https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-what-is-cybersecurity-what-you-need-to-know.html
3) https://www.cpomagazine.com/tech/11-eye-opening-cyber-security-statistics-for-2019/
3) https://www.cpomagazine.com/tech/11-eye-opening-cyber-security-statistics-for-2019/