Unless you are in the industry, you may not fully appreciate how dangerous a cyber-attack could be. For those that have, either they’ve had a taster and been lucky, or, they could have lost everything that they ever worked for to a person or people who they have never met and probably won’t get the chance to either. Cyber-attacks can be anything from an email to an active attempt to get into your online banking or investments, here’s the run down so you know a bit more moving forward;
What is a cyber-attack?
In short, unwanted attempts to steal, disclose, change, disable, or destroy information by unauthorized access to computer systems are known as cyber-attacks. They can be personal attacks which can leave the victims feeling like they have been physically stolen from or assaulted in some way, it can really knock some people for six, especially if there is no way of getting their stolen goods back.
Big companies are on the radar too, but usually they have cyber security services which is a big deterrent it will be people’s personal information that the hackers are after, the rewards could be massive but, the security systems in place make it much more challenging. For ease, it would be ‘easier’ to target individuals who, might not even realize for a few days, or longer, as such personal cyber-attacks are more common.
Why is it such big business?
In conjunction to cybercrime, cyber assaults, such as hacktivists, can be related with cyber warfare or cyber terrorism. In many other words, motivations might differ. And there are three types of motivations: criminal, political, and personal, all of which can easily influence people with the use of things like social media, in fact, some people will even give money for something that is a complete fraud!
Criminally motivated attackers aim for monetary gain, data theft, or company interruption, and it doesn’t even have to be financially driven. Similarly, those who are personally motivated, like an unhappy present or former worker, will take money, data, or even an opportunity to disrupt a company’s infrastructure. However, they are really looking for payback. Attackers with socio-political motivations seek exposure for their causes.
What kind of people would do such a thing?
Cyber assaults against businesses can be carried out by criminal groups, state entities, and private individuals. Outsider versus insider threats is probably the easiest way to categorize cyber-attack risks.
Outsiders
An outsider attack is orchestrated by a person who does not have authorised access to whatever it is that they are trying to gain access to. Typically, they don’t work for the company, or person that they are targeting.
Inside job
Insiders are potentially, even more dangerous because they already have authorized access to whatever it is that they are intending to steal or manipulate in some way. An inside job could be even more tragic depending upon their level of access, as a business it’s a really important area of managing authority, you’d kind of like to be able to trust everyone that works with, or for you but, with cyber security you’re better to adopt the, don’t trust anyone attitude to safeguard your business the best you can.