The majority of successful cyber attacks - 91% according to a study by PhishMe - begin when curiosity, fear, or a sense of urgency entices someone to enter personal data or click on a link.
Phishing emails mimic messages from someone you know or a business that you trust. They are designed to trick people into giving up personal information or clicking on a malicious link that downloads malware. Thousands of phishing attacks are launched every day.
The word spoof means to hoax, trick, or deceive. Website spoofing is when a website is designed to look like a real one and deceive you into believing it is a legitimate site. This is done to gain your confidence, get access to your systems, steal data, steal money, or spread malware.
Website spoofing works by replicating a legitimate website with a big company’s style, branding, user interface, and even domain name in an attempt to trick users into entering their usernames and passwords. This is how the bad guys capture your data or drop malware onto your computer.
Spoofed websites are generally used in conjunction with an email that links to the illegitimate website. As of last August, spoofing and phishing may have cost businesses as much as $354 million.
Ransomware is a modern day, technical twist on a crime that has been around for ages - extortion. At its core, ransomware works when criminals steal something of great value and demand payment in exchange for its return. For most businesses, this involves the encryption of company data. When ransomware hits, businesses come to a standstill, and employees cannot do their jobs.
Without restorable backup data, the company is generally at the mercy of the attacker who will hold your data hostage in exchange for a decryption key you can buy with Bitcoin.
Ransomware has matured into its own category of malware and should be a primary concern for all organizations. According to new research, ransomware breaches have increased by 13% – more than the last five years combined.
Norton defines malware as “malicious software” specifically designed to gain access to or damage a computer. In the case of ransomware, it's designed to hold your data hostage, but that isn’t the only kind. There can be multiple objectives for malware - power, influence, money, information - but the result is always the same - a time consuming, often expensive recovery effort.
Common types of malware include:
Viruses that spread, damage functionality, and corrupt files. Trojans disguised as legitimate software that quietly create backdoors to let other malware into your network. Worms that can infect all of the devices connected to a network. Ransomware that holds your data hostage. Botnets - a network of infected devices that work together under the control of an attacker.
The Internet of Things is a brave new world that has opened insights into our daily routines and our business processes to the web and IOT Hacking takes advantage of this. Whether we like it or not, all of these internet-connected objects are collecting and exchanging data. As you know, data is valuable and for that reason, hackers will look to exploit any devices that aggregate it.
The more “things” we connect - the juicier the reward becomes for hackers. That’s why it’s important to remember that personal passwords and business passwords all belong to humans… with memories that we know are going to let us down from time to time.