The rapid innovation in technology has led to changes in the tactics of cybercrime. The technique of cyberattack is changing and getting better with each day. According to a Check Point research report, the number of cyberattacks globally increased by 28% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. The same report also suggests that Asia received the highest number of cyberattacks in the third quarter of 2022.
Cybercriminals have found new ways to get inside people’s personal data and threaten to exploit them if their demands are not met. There’s a new report, on almost every second day informing us about a cyberattack incident. These reports have words like Phishing, Malware attack, Brute force attack and more such names which may leave many confused about what these are. To answer this, these are different kinds of cyberattacks done to gain access to private data. But how are these different from each other and what is the technique used, we answer it here.
Phishing attack: The phishing attack starts with a fake email or via any other form of communication aimed at luring a victim. The message could look like it has come from a trusted sender and convince the person into giving in his or her personal information to a malicious website. In some cases, malware is downloaded onto the target’s computer. Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach stated phishing as one of the lead causes of the breach.
Malware attack: These are types of malicious software intended to cause harm or damage to a computer, server, or computer network. Trojan, adware, ransomware, and worms are some of the types of malwares. NVIDIA was compromised by a ransomware attack in February 2022.
Brute-force attack: Kaspersky describes brute force attack as a way of cyberthreat that uses trial and error to guess login info, encryption keys or find a hidden web page. Hackers basically make multiple guesses to gain access to a person’s private account.
Zero Day attack: To understand this, one first needs to know what is zero-day vulnerability and zero-day exploit. Zero-day vulnerability is a software loophole discovered by a hacker before the vendor knows about it. Zero-day exploit is the method hackers use to hack systems using the discovered vulnerability. A zero-day attack is a hacker using a zero-day exploit to cause damage to a system with a vulnerability.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack: DDoS attack is intended to make the online service or resource unavailable to its intended users. The hackers achieve this by spamming the targets with fake requests and causing excessive traffic on the network. These attacks come from a large network of infected computers created by hackers. These infected devices are called Botnets.
How to be safe from these cyberattacks: To make sure that your system and your private data is safe from the prying eyes, you can follow some basic steps.
- Use two-factor authentication for that extra layer of security
- Keep your software updated.
- Use strong passwords.
- Never click on suspicious links or emails
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