With the rapid onset of new technological capabilities, cyberattacks are a genuine threat to any modern business. After all, cyberattackers gain new targets as more companies implement new technologies in their organisations.
According to the UK Government, 11% of businesses experienced cyberattacks in 2023. Therefore, it’s vital to be prepared for any potential cyberattacks. Part of this is knowing what you’re up against to ensure your defences are tight and that you’re ready if you become a target.
This blog will review the seven most common cyberattack vectors attackers use to target your organisation. This will help you ensure that you thoroughly know them and are prepared to protect your business.
Phishing is a social engineering attack that uses unsuspecting victims to gain credentials. It is standard in everyday life and businesses, with nearly 22% of all cyberattacks being phishing attacks.
Attackers will pretend to be people or organisations, forging communications to appear as someone they’re not. They will try to prey on those who aren’t educated on the risk of phishing attacks and other attacks and will attack those who are less tech-savvy to try to get the upper hand on those who have no real chance of fighting back.
The best way of protecting yourself from phishing attacks is to educate yourself against them. By knowing what to look out for in all the tricks that phishing attackers use and where they fall short, you’ll be able to identify these attacks quickly. This includes imitation of official channels where, for example, an Amazon attack would use an email such as support@AMAZ0N.com to appear legitimate and forgery of official graphics and communications.
A dedicated denial-of-service (DDoS) attack makes your service inaccessible, usually by overloading your servers and repeatedly loading pages until nobody else can access them.
DDoS attacks are usually big news when they happen. They cause outages and downtime and are generally a nuisance for everyone involved. Google themselves have stated that DDoS attacks are only getting worse and that in 2023, they had to mitigate the most significant DDoS attack ever.
A DDoS attack often uses bots to automate and replicate this process to create a mass service denial. A great solution to this problem is the captcha. Anyone suspicious or trying to do certain things on your business’ front-facing webspace must complete a puzzle to confirm that they are not a bot.
Services like Azure DDoS Protection and Cloudflare exist to combat this, using captchas and other methods to protect organisations from DDoS attacks.
Third-party vulnerabilities are exploits that exist within third-party applications that attackers will use to gain access to organisations that are using said service. This means that, by using whatever service or application that has a vulnerability, your organisation has a gaping hole in its security posture.
There isn’t much you can do about the actual vulnerability, as the organisation that provides the application or service is responsible for patching it. However, you must keep your applications and services up to date to ensure you get all the latest patches and keep your organisation tight and protected.
Sticking with tools created by reputable organisations such as Microsoft will let you ensure that you aren’t using tools designed by a developer that allows these kinds of vulnerabilities to go unpatched.
The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) is the name given to all devices inside your organisation. From printers to security cameras to routers, all these devices have their requirements and sometimes vulnerabilities.
Like third-party vulnerabilities, IoT exploits can be avoided by keeping your hardware’s firmware updated and buying from reputable companies and vendors. However, using firewalls and other security tools will help keep your organisation protected from people trying to get in through these kinds of devices.
It’s critical to ensure that you’re not just putting any devices into your network; thorough research to ensure that you’re aware of everything about any device that goes into your organisation’s network will help ensure that your organisation isn’t hit with any IoT exploits.
Your organisation’s information is only as secure as those with access to it. That said, sometimes a threat forms inside your organisation, which can be catastrophic.
The best way to deal with this is to limit the information you give employees. The best way of doing this is the ‘principle of least privilege’, the idea that people only have access to the information they need to carry out their role. This means that everyone can only access the information entrusted to them.
Ransomware attacks exist to extort organisations out of money, usually by stealing data and then destroying or denying access to said data to disrupt regular operations as much as possible. This multi-faceted attack is also known as a double extortion attack, as it aims to disrupt and steal data to extract as much value out of the attack as possible.
The most important thing about ransomware attacks is that they are usually simply for financial gain and that the attackers will do whatever they can to turn the attack into value. This means that there are a few different ways to ensure that you can mitigate a ransomware attack, either stopping the data from becoming accessible (such as encryptions) or ensuring that you have alternative ways to access your data (using backups and disaster recovery plans).
This protects you from both ends of the double extortion attack, as encrypting your data means that even if they have it, they won’t be able to sell it in the event of an attack. However, you can also get your organisation back up and running using your backups, meaning you don’t have to negotiate with attackers.
However, other methods exist to stop these kinds of attacks, too. Due to the nature of the attack, ransomware attacks can be prevented by security tools; they commonly use attack surfaces that can be protected against modern industry-standard security tools such as access control and antivirus tools.
Artificial intelligence is the headline new technology of the 2020s, and cyberattackers are taking advantage of it to the extreme. Most of the attacks above are only exasperated by AI, which makes these attacks far more potent than usual. AI makes cyberattacks more intelligent, scalable, and challenging to deal with.
However, artificial intelligence also benefits organisations. Organisations like Microsoft use AI in their security tools to counter attacks more intelligently than ever before. By utilising AI to make your organisation more robust and secure, you can easily ensure you’re prepared for this new generation of cyberattacks.
Despite this, the most crucial step is getting prepared now. MIT’s Technology Review says that in 2021, 91% of their respondents said they were getting prepared to face this new generation of AI-powered cyberattacks, so it’s more important than ever to do so now.
However, AI also brings new challenges, with deepfakes and disinformation looming. While the technology isn’t quite there yet, MIT says that 56% of attacks will be based on misinformation and 43% will be deepfakes, both new threats the world has never faced.
Your organisation’s cybersecurity is critical. By ensuring that you’re protected and have everything in place to secure your organisation, you can mitigate and withstand attacks and ensure your business’s longevity and prosperity.
These are the most common cyberattack vectors, and any modern business needs to be aware of them to stamp them out before they wreak havoc on its organisation.
If you need help getting started fighting cyberattacks, reach out to us today. We’ll ensure that you have everything you need to protect yourself against this new generation of cyberattacks and help you patch up any vulnerabilities in your security posture.
Get in touch with us now and see how we can help you.