Cyber Attacks For Dummies

You’re probably aware of what a cyber attack is, in theory, at least. You’ve probably had to watch sensitization videos at work and undergo training to keep your unit compliant. 

Experiencing a cyber attack, on the other hand, is nothing short of a horror story. Depending on its type, you could be locked out of critical digital resources, have sensitive information leaked, or have your company’s server overwhelmed. The list goes on. 

Regardless of the scale, cyber attacks are always detrimental to the victim. For this reason, establishing an impenetrable network environment across all endpoints is a best practice for modern businesses prioritizing longevity. 

This article highlights everything you need to know about cyber attacks, from its textbook definition to its various types, impact, and corresponding future-proof cybersecurity solutions. Stick around for your crash course on everything cyber attacks. 

How often do cyber attacks happen?

Cyber attacks are a series of malicious efforts directed toward stealing, disabling, exposing, manipulating, or destroying data, applications, and other digital assets through unauthorized access to a computer network, device, or system. 

They are more frequent now than ever. Statistically, 4000 new attacks are recorded every day, as reported by Entrepreneur.com, and according to Deloitte, 91% of them begin as email phishing scams. These attacks are so frequent that there’s a ransomware attack every 14 seconds, according to CISA, and there’s no telling how long they’ll last. For instance, the SSL Store’s 2022 Attacks Report recorded the longest continuous DDoS attack against a Hong Kong financial institution, which lasted a total of 23 days. 

The increase in the volume and sophistication of these attacks is no surprise, especially with the vast threat landscape due to the mass adoption of remote work by businesses worldwide. Another reason for the increase in global cyber attacks is the evolution of technology and the adoption of generative AI by businesses and threat actors alike. 

While we cannot return to the Stone Age, cyber attacks have forced businesses to choose between obsolescence and evolution. However, while cybercrime is a global issue that’s set to cost the world $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to Cyber Magazine, some industries have it worse than others. Financial service institutions like credit unions, banks, and insurance companies have recorded their fair share of cyber attacks. The same can be said about businesses in the healthcare and e-commerce industries. Even government institutions aren’t left out of these attacks. 

How cyber attacks work

To understand how cyber attacks work, we must first explore their inception. 

Similar to how an intruder gains access to your home and robs you blind, hackers gain access to your network by exploiting weaknesses embedded in your system. These hackers actively search for these weaknesses, which could be anything from outdated software to weak passwords, insecure network configurations and IoT devices, and, of course, human errors like clicking untrusted links. 

Once they identify either of these weaknesses, they progress to phase 2: exploitation. This is where the hacker applies various tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to gain access to the network system and carry out their intended action. For instance, if the hacker is cash-driven, once the network is breached, they could steal sensitive data and threaten to leak it if they’re not paid a ransom. 

Common types of cyber attacks

Cyber attacks come in various types. A handful of them include:

Phishing attacks: 

If you’ve ever received an email with a suspicious link like ‘Click here to win a new car’ from an unidentified sender, you have been a proxy for a potential phishing attack. 

Phishing attacks can also be called victim-authorized attacks. They involve deceptive emails or messages that trick individuals into intentionally or unintentionally revealing sensitive information, like login details, which hackers can use to access the organization’s network. 

Malware attacks: 

Malware attacks involve malicious software created by threat actors to exploit and compromise an organization’s network environment. Once downloaded into an endpoint device within a secure network, malware acts as a computer virus, worm, or Trojan horse. If not detected early, the threat actor gains control over your network while you’re left to combat the repercussions. 

Ransomware attacks: 

Just like a kidnapper holds his victim hostage for ransom, once a network’s defense is breached, a threat actor can decide to compromise the organization’s data until a ransom is paid. These actors can go as far as rescinding access permissions to sensitive data, therefore blocking formerly authorized users from their digital resources. 

DDoS Attacks: 

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial-of-Service, and it’s a malicious attempt to overwhelm an organization’s network or server with traffic to spread its resources thin, ultimately making them unavailable to users. To achieve this, cyber hackers use a server of compromised computers to generate a large volume of traffic, with which they flood the target server with requests, leading to its suboptimal performance. 

Zero-Day Attacks: 

 Zero-day attacks are attacks that focus on the vulnerability of a network. They occur when malicious actors discover and exploit security flaws within software, firmware, or hardware that the vendor or manufacturer was unaware of, giving them ‘zero days’ to fix said flaw.

Real-world examples

Here are some cyber attacks that have gotten more press than others, just because of the sheer scale of these attacks. They include:

1. The SolarWinds Attack of 2020: In 2020, a group of Russian-backed hackers targeted SolarWinds, a major software company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These hackers deployed malicious code into their Orion IT monitoring software, which thousands of businesses and even government agencies used. This compromised the privacy and integrity of their service. 

• The Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack of 2021: This ransomware attack was against Colonial Pipeline, an American oil pipeline system that originates in Houston, Texas. The perpetrators shut down the computerized equipment that was designed to remotely manage the pipeline, seeking a ransom before service restoration. To resolve this issue, the company paid a whopping $4.4 million.
• The Equifax Data Breach of 2017: Equifax, one of the largest credit bureaus in the United States of America, was hit with a security breach that exposed the personal information of about 147 million people, including their names, credit details, social security numbers, addresses, and birth dates. This security breach was made possible due to a failure to resolve a known vulnerability. The bureau has since paid over $700 million in settlements because of this breach.

Impact of Cyber Attacks

The impact of cyber attacks on individuals and organizations can only be negative. From financial losses to reputational damage, not to mention a disruption in normal business operations, cyber attacks create lingering impacts. Let’s explore some of these ways:

1. Financial Loss: Financial losses in the form of ransom payments, legal expenses, regulatory fines, lost revenue, and PR expenditure can easily run into millions of dollars, depending on the scale of the attack and the size of the business. 
2. Operational Disruption: DDoS, malware, and zero-day attacks all impede the baseline of business operations. The Colonial Pipeline attack, for instance, halted critical services, causing fuel shortages on the entire East Coast. The SolarWinds attacks affected supply chains, causing backlogs and unfulfilled orders. 
3. Reputational Damage: Mitigating a cyber attack isn’t its hardest part; recovering from it is. Data breaches not only compromise a business’s security, it compromises customer loyalty and investor confidence while plummeting the brand’s reputation. Some companies never recover and are forced to file for Chapter 11. 

Protecting Your Company From Cyber Attacks

Most cyber attacks are preventable with proactive security measures ranging from endpoint security to simulation solutions. Here are some strategies that can improve your security posture:

1. Employee training: Those 1 to 2-hour courses on phishing, social engineering, and information security are invaluable. The tactics of threat actors are getting more advanced, so it’s important to regularly update the learning resources and keep your staff abreast of the changes. Only then do they stand a chance against insider threats.
2. Patching: Patching vulnerabilities might feel like a hassle now, but putting it off could cost you big time. That’s why you need to fix security gaps as soon as they show up. SecOps teams play a key role in this by implementing tools to scan endpoints, software, hardware, operating systems, and firmware for weak spots—and making sure they’re sealed fast.
3. Backups: Threat actors work in different ways. Some can decide to compromise your entire database and if a backup doesn’t exist, your company fails to recover. For this reason, maintaining secure and encrypted backups of core applications and data is essential for business continuity. 
4. Endpoint Security: Securing all the devices that connect to your network or server is one of the best ways to counter cyber attacks. These computers, IoT devices, tablets, and other endpoints can be safeguarded with antivirus software, firewalls, and zero-trust policies. 
5. Application Security Posture Management: Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) is a proactive security framework that continuously monitors and improves the security posture of applications at all stages of their life cycle. With Application Security Posture Management, you can automatically detect vulnerabilities within your environment, streamline their remediation, and ultimately improve your organization’s resilience. 

Future Threats and Trends 

For every major technological advancement there’s a corresponding vulnerability that emerges. Cyber criminals are also advancing beyond their previous abilities, and with the threat landscape expanding in surface area, the need for robust cybersecurity solutions will only rise. 

Some of the trends we’ll see in this niche include:

1. AI-driven attacks: Cyber criminals are already leveraging AI to automate their phishing attacks and power their malware, as well as deepfake social engineering, all in a bid to bypass traditional security defenses. 
2. API threats: Modern businesses’ reliance on application programming interfaces (APIs) makes them susceptible to cyber attacks, especially injection attacks. Because of this, API threats will become more frequent in the coming years. However, strong authentication and secure practices can help protect against them.
3. Cybercrime-as-a-Service: Cybercriminals often have a syndicate. However, there’s about to be an increase in the number of underground marketplaces on the dark web that request the services of hackers in exchange for a fee. So, the projected rise of hackers-for-hire and botnets-as-a-service will make sophisticated cyber attacks accessible to anyone who can pay. 

Proactive. Patch. Protect!

The impact and repercussions of cyber attacks are horrific, and no organization is immune. Threat actors are constantly evolving their tactics, and so should you. Future-proofing your defenses requires continuous endpoint monitoring, employee training, proactive vulnerability detection, timely patching, and system upgrades. However, true resilience comes from integrating these measures with a holistic application security posture management approach. Only then can you stay ahead of the curve. 

Don’t wait for an attack to expose your weaknesses – it’ll be too late by then. Upgrade your cybersecurity arsenal and fortify your defenses today!