It seems as if cyber security threats around the globe have put their foot on the accelerator. Cybersecurity Ventures recently reported that cybercrime, as a prediction, will cost $10.5 trillion by the year 2025.
Hackers and scammers are attacking at an astonishing speed, and often before you can blink. Once they do, it’s not an easy fix. In fact, as referenced by a recent study from IBM and the Ponemon Institute, it can take approximately 287 days for an organization’s security team to find and contain a breach of data.
If you are worried about cyber security threats, it helps to keep yourself and your teams posted on these scary trends so that you can find solutions to stay clear from them. The best cyber security advice to organizations today is that knowledge is power.
What is Cyber Security?
Cyber security is the practices, processes, and technologies that are used to protect programs, devices, networks, and data from unauthorized access, attacks, and damage. It is also known as information technology security.
Cyber security is vital to collect, store, and process large amounts of sensitive data for industry sectors like banking, government, financial, healthcare, insurance, and more.
The Top 10 Cyber Security Threats of 2022
The top cyber security threats change each year. If you are wondering what are cyber security threats that you should be worried about in the year 2022, these are the ones to keep on top of your IT department’s radar.
1. Cryptojacking
A popular term for most people in the year 2022 is “crypto,” so why should hackers be any different? Creative cybercriminals now use a victim’s device to mine, you guessed it, cryptocurrency. They can now profit that much easier from a computer or online server.
Don’t fool yourself that it is not as serious as it may sound. It takes a lot of processing power to mine for crypto so systems can slow down significantly.
2. Formjacking
Targeting payment page forms, formjacking occurs when a hacker will insert JavaScript code that is malicious to a website. Cybercriminals can profit from this by selling the information on the dark web, a complex place that makes it difficult to track their behavior.
If your company processes payments on your website, know that you are at risk for formjacking. It does not matter to a hacker how big or small your company is.
3. Zoombombing
COVID-19 forced us to forego in-person work and school and substitute it for virtual experiences. Such a major shift is not immune to cyber security threats. We use Zoom and other popular video-calling applications for meetings, whether it be for work, school, family, or friends.
Cybercriminals have worked to hijack these calls to cause severe damage to a company’s reputation to gather sensitive information. Hackers have found value, unfortunately, in zoombombing.
4. Cloud Vulnerabilities
People love talking about “the cloud” in today’s digital world. The cloud is a term that references services and software that are accessed over the Internet. The cloud does not keep information locally on a computer, so it frees up space for a device.
The major challenge with using the cloud over a local machine is security. Unauthorized access to the cloud is the most common security risk. This can cause a data breach.
5. Malware
A term that covers a lot of various malicious types of software, malware will find security holes in an operating system or a server and will exploit them. Malware can be a spyware program that will monitor your device for your browsing habits, or it can be a trojan that will open a door for attackers to come in.
There is one common place of entry for malware. To be infected, the user must willingly download or install the malware without knowing what it is. A cyber-criminal can then steal sensitive data and use it to profit financially.
It is much easier to prevent a malware attack versus having to get rid of it after your device has the infection.
6. IoT Attacks
IoT or the Internet of Things are physical objects that use the internet to work. These types of attacks are extremely unnerving because the object itself possesses limited computing capacity, which is what makes them so vulnerable. Smart locks, smart appliances, and smart thermostats can turn against you without warning.
7. Social Engineering
Social engineering targets the user, not the device. It will exploit a human and trick them into harmful behavior, such as unwillingly disclosing passwords and credit card numbers. The most common form is called phishing, which will copy a website’s HTML code to pretend to be a legitimate business purpose and then steal sensitive information.
8. DoS Attacks
When a cyber-criminal disrupts or blocks an entire server or even just one computer, this is called a denial-of-service or DoS attack. It can be over-saturating a server’s capacity. This would render the server unusable.
If you are experiencing load times that are longer than usual, or sudden losses of connection, you may be experiencing a sign of a DoS attack.
9. MITM Attack
A MITM or man-in-the-middle attack happens when a hacker will insert themselves in between two parties who think that they are communicating privately. It’s a lot like eavesdropping. They typically linked this kind of attack to poorly protected or non-encrypted Wi-Fi access points.
10. No Patch Management
Outdated software can cause cyber security threats. You should stay up-to-date with software patches so that your devices are not leaving vulnerabilities on the table. Patch management helps with correcting errors in software.
Cyber Security Advice
If this is a major concern for you and your organization, don’t lose sleep over these top 10 cyber security threats. Visore Security Solutions can help keep your organization safe and running smoothly working alongside your existing cyber security systems.
With our simple to use security management platform, we empower organizations to quickly get ahead of cyber security threats by overcoming obstacles that impede their security operations. Click here to request a demo today and learn more.