Commercial Cyber Security: What Drives Cyber Criminals To Attack Businesses?
The main misconception many companies have is that cyber threats and attacks are only a headache for governmental high-secure establishments or world-leading corporations. Yet, most of the attacks are automatic and not organized, and any business neglecting cyber security company services are sitting ducks, waiting for the next sophisticated attack to hit them. Learn more about why cybercriminals aim at companies and organizations.
What stimulates hackers to attack companies and organizations
It doesn’t matter if it’s the real-life or online world criminals always want to gain something from you. For most cyber attacks, the end game is money and cash from selling data on the dark web, getting ransom from blackmail or committing financial fraud using obtained data. But what business has to interest hackers?
- Sensitive personal information ( phone number, SSN, address, identification)
- Customers’ financial and bank account information;
- Record of corporate transactions;
- Intellectual property and product ideas;
- IT infrastructure and services;
- Customers’ payment information;
- Employees’ login details and passwords.
Yet, not all attacks on the digital front are designed to bring down a specific person or business. Automatic threats aim at the flaws in the systems to steal as much valuable data as possible.
Cyber attackers: Insiders and outsiders
Unfortunately, you don’t need to be a cybercriminal to cause a cyber attack on the organization. In the cyber security industry, there are two types of attackers acting from outside and within the organization.
- The inside job is the result of untrained employees that don’t follow the corporate cyber security guideline and regulations. The damage could come from trusted executives or managers displacing the information or using unprotected networks while accessing data, applications, and programs, leading to a compromised authentication. Careless employees clicking on any link and downloading malware to your system are the number one reason for most corporate data breaches. And finally, the rare case of malicious staff members or ex-employees leaking the data and password as an act of revenge.
- Outsiders usually refer to the developed cybercriminal gang with unlimited resources in money and technology, professional hackers who work on contract or freelance, and amateur growing hacker groups. The last one doesn’t usually pose that much threat as they don’t have the right technology to cause significant damage.
Types of the cyber threats
Some of the threats have been operating for decades now, with thousands of new variants to fool the security system or apply crucial damage to users and businesses. Here are widely spread and feared cyber threats that leave even experts stunned:
- Phishing
Social engineering attacks like phishing and whaling became more elaborate, making thousands of employees give away their valuable passwords, credit card information, transaction data, and more. Whether targeting regular employee or stakeholders and executives, hackers act by the same scenario of sending loads of emails and messages from pretentious legitimate sources. That way, they hunt for valuable data to get inside the system or commit identity theft.
- Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)
Some hackers just after your computers add the power to overload the traffic disrupting the system workflow or even shutting it down completely. The DDoS attacks can target the bigger fish, like leading enterprises or nationwide cooperation, or affect even small businesses.
- Malware
As an umbrella term, malware refers to viruses, worms, ransomware, trojans, and spyware. The easiest way to get your system, programs, and devices infected is by downloading files and program updates from unauthorized websites, clicking on the attached links in unfamiliar suspicious emails, and using open public networks. The malware focuses on obtaining valuable data and freezing your accounts and assets. In case of a ransomware attack, even blackmail the business in order to bankrupt it.
- Password attack
The hackers’ goal is to get inside the systems and servers as smoothly as possible without letting the cyber security system detect the intruders. Therefore, many cybercriminals target personal passwords to access possible work accounts and compromise data integrity. With social engineering technology, hackers fish all crucial information to use it for a sneak theft right under the cyber defense detectors.
- Man-in-the-middle (MitM)
By putting themselves between two-party transactions, cybercriminals get access to valuable information to sell on the dark web, blackmail individuals, or commit identity fraud. Usually, hackers use unprotected networks in public places to put themselves in question and easily steal data. To protect your devices from MitM attacks, avoid working, completing transactions, or doing administrative tasks on public WiFi points.
- Internet-of-Things (IoT) attacks
New technology allows you to stay connected to the internet from any device, from your watch and fitness tracker to the fridge and car. Such conviction is excellent and efficient to stay connected to the workplace, yet it blurs the line between private and corporate, giving hackers more surfaces to penetrate the systems. With widely distributed access points, cyber security strategy should involve not only cutting-edge technology but training and defense guidelines for each employee with access to the crucial platforms and networks.
How to avoid becoming the next victim?
There are many tips on how business owners and managers can straighten the cyber defense systems, from using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication to educating the team on cyber security awareness and introducing new guidelines on mitigating the damage. Yet, the little tips won’t be enough to secure the workplace from lucrative cybercriminals. The best measure a business can take is to invest in professional cyber security service providers.
Wrapping up
The reality of the cybercrime business shows that no one is safe from cyber attackers and lucrative threats. Still, the best chance for corporates to withstand the battlefield against cybercriminals is to hire cyber security experts to shield their assets, data, networks, and servers from elevated threats and minimize the damage in case of an attack. No one should neglect the importance of cyber defense since even a leading enterprise like Tesla suffered from the billion-dollar cybercrime industry, as they figured in the data breach scandal not long ago.
