An overview of cybersecurity

An overview of cybersecurity

Cybersecurity refers to a technique that protects from digital threats that emanate from services, networks and devices. It is an activity aimed at modifying, damaging or accessing confidential information, interrupting businesses’ normal operation or even extortionate funds from users. Today the internet has become increasingly popular, and with this increase in popularity, so does the risk of cybersecurity increase. With good cybersecurity practices, cyber-attack risks decrease. Good cybersecurity involves safeguarding systems connected through the internet, such as software, data, and hardware from cyber-attacks. Some basic way to offer protection, for example, to your phone, is to ensure that it is repaired at reputable dealers. Review sites such as reviewsbird.de will help you identify reputable dealers. You can also try out MyPhoneRepair. This year the World Conference on Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking (WCCSEH) took place in Berlin, Germany, in May. This article offers an overview of cybersecurity to illustrate why such conferences are important. Specifically, it covers the types of cybersecurity attacks.

Types of cybersecurity attacks

Denial of service attack

This type of attack essentially aims at ensuring the servers are too busy or completely shuts them down so that they are unable to serve the request of users. A denial-of-service attack typically entails an attacker using multiple machines to overflow the servers with requests continually. The main aim of a denial-of-service attack is to ensure that the server is too busy to attend to fake requests, such that it even fails to have time to serve genuine requests. To successfully perform a denial-of-service attack, attackers get an enormous number of machines by infecting various machines globally with their malware and thus can access the different infected machines. At times when the load gets high, it can also cause the server to crash. Denial of service attack is not of any direct benefit to the attacker. The attackers carrying out these attacks cannot steal any significant or sensitive information from the server. Instead, they are just able to keep the servers busy, ensuring that legitimate users are unable to use the serves. The attackers can also use a denial-of-service attack as a distraction from various other attacks. Typically, when an organisation focuses on their servers being down, they often forget to work on their server’s security.

Phishing Attack

 This involves a combination of social engineering and technical trickery involving an attacker sending an email that replicates that coming from a trusted source. The main aim behind phishing attacks is to persuade individuals to do some activity or to gain their personal information. The sent email can, at times, have the link to the website requiring some intake from the user. Inputting the data typically sends the attacker additional information, and the attacker can redirect the user to another website that potentially has malware. The emails can also have malware that on downloading, infects the system, and exposes delicate information stored in the computer, making it susceptible. Typically, phishing attackers’ personal information aims at acquiring information about a user’s salary, login credentials, and credit card numbers.

Vishing Attack

This is a form of phishing attack entailing an attacker making a phone contact to a client to get their personal data by claiming that they are genuine users. For example, when the attackers want to get a user’s bank details, they may claim they are officers from bank insurance. They typically use some phoney strategies to lure a client into deception, and thus the client gives their personal information. Fake voice calls and SMS messages are the most widely used.

Malware attack

Basically, this type of attack entails the attacker utilising a malicious code capable of destroying the entire network, including the server and the client it serves. It enables the attackers to control the machine they’ve sent malware to, thus enabling them to acquire sensitive information. Malware attacks are highly dangerous as they can stay on a network for a lengthy period without being traced. The malware will then undetectably sniff data from packets and thus leak information secretly. Malware attacks are even considered to be lethal as they are capable of emulating a legitimate code and self-propagates through the network, therefore spreading to all the devices that are linked to the network.

In conclusion, with this article, the different types of cybersecurity attacks are discussed. This helps the reader to understand them and try out ways to eliminate them.  Specifically, conferences such as WCCSEH are very important for finding ways to tackle such threats. They will offer a platform where IT professionals and academic will provide their practical and theoretical contributions, empirical studies and case histories, all of which play a big role in reducing the prevalence of these cybersecurity threats.