Cybercrime Culprits
While this is not purported to be an exhaustive list , some of the common culprits over the past couple of years include :
Phishing : A vast majority of cybercrime is conducted through this most common and effective technique of an email purportedly from a trusted entity or a legitimate company demanding sensitive information like social security numbers or credit card information for managing your subscription to a certain service . Ransomware : A lion ’ s share of malware is spread through email . Ransomware is a form of malware that locks up your system data and extorts hundreds and thousands of dollars for a decryption key . Given that a ransom paid averages $ 1.1 million according to a ZDNet report , It is estimated that companies globally would be paying a whopping $ 20 billion towards ransom reparation in 2021 . Drive-by downloads : Clicking on an innocuous website may lead you to an online offer which could download malware which would wreak havoc on your system . Man-in-the-middle attacks : A cyberthief intercepts messages between two parties engaged in a data dialog over an untrusted network like an unsecured public Wi-Fi , stealing any sensitive information that is transmitted between these two parties . Social Engineering : Imagine a worker who pretends to be from your maintenance company or accounts department asking for credit card or other personal information . An unsuspecting employee would probably give this information away without thinking twice . Password attacks : According to Cybersecurity Media , at least 300 billion passwords are in use today . With a password like “ Password123 ” to access your online bank account , hackers can easily launch an intelligent program to crack a safe open in no time .
Size doesn ’ t matter
There are many other forms of security attacks including Denial of Service ( DoS ) attacks which would choke your server by bombarding it with data . With the emergence of 5G and cheaper bandwidth , IOT attacks are becoming common with everything from your car communicating with your smart-home thermostat or your watch . In a recent incident a Vegas casino was breached by a clever hacker who managed to break into the network through a thermometer placed inside a fish tank , and managed to send information to a destination in Finland !
With the pandemic and remote working conditions , many companies may be inadvertently throwing some security caution to the winds . While larger corporations typically allocate big dollars for IT security , it is often the mid-sized and smaller companies that have a tendency to shrug off IT security spending and are often caught by rude surprise . Given that 95 % of cybersecurity attacks are as a result of human error according to Cybint , and half of these are targeted towards smaller companies , data protection should be a matter of priority to everyone irrespective of company size .
Secure your data continued on page 32
A Cybersecurity Ventures research predicts cybercrime to cost the global economy an astronomical $ 6 trillion in 2021 . www . nailba . org 31