Cyber Security Month 2018 – Think Before You Click

15 Oct 2018

What is a Cyber Attack?

A Cyber-attack is a malicious attempt to destroy or alter networks, information or devices by a third party. Criminals can launch an attack on a business for a range of reasons, some of the most common being to steal money, to gain access to financial information or data, or to weaken the integrity or disrupt the operations of a business.

In this part of our series, we’ll discuss the types of attacks out there and why attackers may target you.

What are the Common Forms of Cyber Attacks?

Cyber-attacks present themselves in many forms, from malware injection and phishing, web-based hacks and ransomware. Some hacks are more effective than others, but all present a significant risk to businesses and consumers. The most likely forms of cyber-attacks include:

Cyber Fraud: Cyber fraud presents in a number of ways and most commonly is a technique called phishing. Phishing is an attempt to obtain sensitive information (passwords, usernames, credit card details) by disguising as a trusty worth email. Phishing is typically carried out by email spoofing, direct messaging.

Malware Attacks: Malware is software to covertly operate on a system without the consent of the user. Malware is often described as a Trojan Horse, Virus or Worm. Trojan Horse takes its name from Greek mythology and acts in the same way. A Trojan horse appears as one thing usually an application, game, email but is really a device for delivering malware. Trojan Horses can be present in many forms for hackers such as a back door to user information or access to personal information

Ransomware (RaaS): Ransomware attacks have risen by 350% of the last 12 months. Ransomware threatens to release personal data of the victim or block access to a site unless a ransom is paid. Hackers payments are difficult to trace as they tend to ask for crypto currencies.

Not all security breaches are the result of a hack or malicious action. Human error and internal actions are a factor of cyber security breaches that people overlook. This can be a result of information being sent to the wrong recipient, loss of paperwork or failure to censor information.

Reasons Behind a Cyber Attack

Businesses of all sizes are a potential target, as we mentioned at the start some smaller businesses do often believe that they are not worth hacking. To a criminal, all businesses have a financial gain to seek benefit from. Understanding why hackers want to steal your information is the first step to combatting or confronting them.

Cyber attacks are most often motivated by financial gain. However other motivations includes: making a social or political point, spying on a competitor to gain an advantage or white hat hacking.

Average Cost and Length of Time to Resolve an Attack

Depending on the type of attack your organisation receives will determine the average length and cost to resolve it for a UK business which are as follows.

Malware: £1.57 million – 6.4 days
Web-based attacks: £1.52 million – 22.4 days
Denial of services attack (D-O-S): £1.31 million – 16.8 days
Malicious code: £960,000 – 20 days
Stolen devices: £700,000 – 14.6 days
Ransomware: £520,000 – 23.1 days

How Does Cyber Security Help Against Cyber Attacks?

Cyber security should be a prevention rather than a cure. Cyber crime aims to disrupt and damage you or your business and the consequences can be unrecoverable. Find out more on the impact on businesses and consumers on part 3.

For more information about cyber security and whether your procedures are suited to the combat cyber attacks, get in touch with the helpful team here at Netbiz Group.