What Is a Cyber Attack? Trends and How to Prevent Them

Information technology brings many benefits to humanity but also carries real risks. One of the most dangerous and common is the cyber attack, which has caused serious consequences for Internet users. In this article, join Mona Media in looking at what a cyber attack is, the trends, and ways to stop cyber attacks.

What is a cyber attack?

Cyber Attack refers to an attack on networks or in cyberspace. It means breaking into computer networks, databases, network infrastructure, websites or digital devices of individuals or organizations, carried out by high-tech criminals (cybercriminal). They may use one or more computers to attack other networks or machines. Cybercriminals can use many different methods to carry out a cyber attack, and each attack may disable computers, steal data, or even serve as the starting point for a larger attack.

See more: What is cyber security? The challenges of cyber security today

Targets and motives of cyber attacks

Cybercriminals may target businesses, government or non-government organizations, individuals, even state agencies or an entire country. However, businesses are the most common targets of cyber attacks, for a simple reason: attackers act for profit.

Alongside these, cyber attackers also act for illegal gain, to show ads for money, to extort businesses, to damage stored data, or to destroy systems and devices. There are other, more dangerous and complicated motives such as unfair competition, attacks on a country's economy or security, and attacks to bring down religious organizations. Some hackers also carry out cyber attacks for fun or to test their skills.

Current cyber attack trends

Software supply chain attacks

In a software supply chain attack, hackers typically plant malware in software by modifying and infecting one of the building blocks the software relies on. Specifically, like physical chains, the strength of a supply chain also depends on how its links connect.

See more: Website malware scanning tool 

Software supply chain attacks usually fall into two main types. The first is attacks with a known target, where hackers scan a list of target suppliers and then find the weakest link to get in through. The other type targets as many people as possible, by locating a link that has a wide distribution reach.

Phishing attacks

Phishing attacks is a common cyber attack technique and a major threat to cybersecurity. Hackers use modern techniques to get past email security barriers easily, which lets them extort money or threaten users in other ways. The attack is usually carried out by email: if a user opens the email and clicks a fake link, they are asked to log in. Once the user logs in, the hackers have the information immediately.

See more: What is email phishing? How to avoid it

Cloud attacks

The wide adoption of cloud environments has led to many attacks on the resources and data on these platforms. Poorly managed or misconfigured cloud resources are enough to create a threat to the cloud environment. Once credentials are misconfigured or leaked, hackers can exploit the weakness to break into the cloud platform.

Mobile device attacks

Mobile banking apps are becoming more and more popular, and hackers are gradually applying attack techniques to the mobile world. Moreover, malware once successfully integrated into the mobile world, cyber attackers can steal users' payment data, login information and bank account funds.

How to prevent cyber attacks

Many statistics suggest that businesses today are not effectively protected against cyber attacks. But there are ways to stop them. The key to defending against cyber attacks is an end-to-end network security architecture, built from multiple layers that cover all networks, mobile devices, cloud and endpoints. With it, you can manage the many security layers effectively and monitor all network environments, mobile infrastructure and cloud services.

Other ways to prevent cyber attacks include:

• Maintain stable security
• It is important to prevent
• Keep every attack vector under control
• Deploy and use the most advanced technologies
• Keep threat awareness up to date and tighten cybersecurity measures across the whole organization
• Use the best antivirus software
• Use a strong firewall, such as the default Firewall or a firewall provided by a third party
•  Make sure no Plug and Play is supported on the organization's network.
• Regularly monitor traffic to spot anomalies

That's everything about what a cyber attack is. We hope this article helped you understand cyber attacks better and know how to stop them effectively.

If you want to understand the groundwork behind this in more depth, the article What is PKI and how to protect customer data explains it in detail and describes how we do it for our clients.

If you want to understand the groundwork behind this in more depth, the article What is SSL and why an insecure website costs you money explains it in detail and describes how we do it for our clients.