Cyber Attacks: The Rundown

By: Sam Geary, Marketing Executive

I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard the term ‘cyber attack’ mentioned on the news, especially over the last few years.

Cyber attacks are becomming more frequent with all businesses (large, medium and small) being affected. But what is a cyber attack and why do you need to make sure your business is protected from them?

As technology advances, so do cyber attacks. Criminals are becoming more sophisticated and cyber attacks are no longer subject to businesses of a certain size.

Cyber attacks aren’t a new phenomenon. They have been around for years and continue getting bigger and better. With major ransomware campaigns including WannaCry, Bad Rabbit and NotPetya infecting a mass amount of infrastructure within the last year, understanding the importance of protecting yourself from cyber threats is fundamental. So, let’s start with the essentials…

What are cyber attacks?

At its most basic, a cyber attack is a hacking from one computer against another, but they can also be attacks made from multiple computers against multiple computers all the way up to multiple computers attacking an entire network.

Did you know that nearly half of all businesses (46%) reported a cyber breach in the last year?

The type of cyber attack you hear about on the news is likely to be one of the larger scale attacks against banks, big corporations, or even governments. Cyber attacks can be perpetrated by anyone including individuals and groups.

Think about the time you could lose through having to fix your website or systems. Think about the potential loss of your customers and the damage to your reputation. The impact of a cyber attack can be huge and it’s more than just money you could lose.

If you want to improve the cyber security of your business, have a read of our ‘Protect Your Business’ guide. It focuses on the steps you should be taking to safeguard your business from cyber threats.

What are the different types?

Broadly speaking, there are two different types of cyber attack: those where the aim is to disable or disrupt a target computer or network, and those where the aim is to gain access to private information or important data. There are many different methods for achieving this including:

Phishing emails – this refers to emails that are designed to trick people into giving up their private information such as their password.

Malware – this is software that a user will download onto their computer that can do a whole range of different things. The most common kinds of malware include ransomware, which will encrypt all your files and bribe you into paying a fee to have them decrypted, and forms which can steal data like passwords and bank details.

Denial of service attacks (DoS) – Denial of service attacks are when several computers make requests at the same time and to the same server. Flooding a server with traffic is designed to make it crash.

These are just three of the most popular techniques used, and they can be used in various combinations as well. For example, a user might get a phishing email which tricks them into downloading malware.

Why do you need to protect your business?

By now, it should be obvious why you need to make sure your business is protected from cyber attacks. As they become more frequent, it’s no longer huge companies that are at risk, even individuals can become targets. As mentioned early, criminals online have become more sophisticated and have realised that it’s easier to make money from smaller cyber attacks because the victim might not even notice!

For example, you might not notice £20 being taken from your bank one month, but if a criminal takes £20 from 100 people’s accounts, you can quickly see why small-scale attacks can be profitable.

It’s more than just protecting your own money and information. It’s now also the law to make sure you protect your clients’ data. The EU’s new data protection regulation, GDPR, obliges businesses to, among other things, ensure they have the necessary measure in place and it’s all in the name of data protection. Protecting against cyber-attacks is, therefore, part of making sure sensitive data stays safe.

You may or may not be prepared for a cyber attack. We’d start by recommending you get the basics right.

Hopefully this article has given you some clarity on what cyber attacks are and what forms they come in, whilst also explaining why it’s important to make sure your business is protected.

So, if you don’t already have one, make sure your business has a security strategy in place, and make sure it’s kept up to date. Technology is now moving faster than ever, and you want to make sure you’re not going to be the victim of change by having outdated security measures.

To find out more about cyber threats and securing your business, get in touch! Whether it’s a question you have, advice you need or one of our services you want. We can help!

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