Cyber security breaches are on the rise, which means that companies and individuals alike must be better prepared to combat them. Fortunately, there are several different types of cyber security to help you stay protected from hackers, thieves, and other cyber-criminals. It’s important to know what they are and how they work so you can guard yourself against these attacks as much as possible. You must have a look at seven of the most common types of cyber security. With cyber security on everyone’s mind and with the recent influx of cyber attacks in the news, it’s no wonder so many people are wondering what cyber security means and why they should care about it. Cyber security experts face unique challenges not shared by many other professionals, but there are many different types of cyber security that any expert can benefit from learning more about. Let’s take a look at some of these different types of cyber security and see what experts have to say about them!
Social Engineering
Social Engineering is a type of cyber security that is used to obtain personal information about someone by using deception and manipulating people into revealing the desired information. There are many different types of social engineering, but phishing is one example. Phishing is when an email or text message is sent to a person or company to trick them into disclosing their login credentials or other sensitive information. Another form of social engineering is spear phishing, which targets a specific individual such as employees at a bank or healthcare organization. In this type of attack, the attacker typically knows more about the target than they would if they were randomly attacking random people with spam emails. The attacker will often research who they are targeting so that they can use this knowledge to make it seem like it came from someone who would be trusted by the target. Other examples of social engineering are keylogging, credential stuffing, booby-trapping software, and pinging. A keylogger is a malware that monitors what you type on your keyboard while you’re typing and sends the data back to the hacker. Credential stuffing is a process where hackers take your username/password combination (likely obtained through phishing) and enter it into websites across the internet to try to gain access.
Hacking
Hacking is an unauthorized intrusion into a system or network. It is typically done with malicious intent and can result in loss of data, money, and time. The most common types of hacking are social engineering and phishing scams. These are where the hacker attempts to gain access to the victim’s computer by deceiving them into revealing their password or other personal information. Phishing emails look like they come from trusted sources but are designed to get you to reveal your personal information. Another type of hacking is known as ransomware, which consists of hackers taking control of your computer and holding it hostage until you pay a ransom fee. In the past years, when there was a huge epidemic of such viruses called WannaCry that shut down thousands of businesses around the world for several days. Protecting yourself against these types of attacks starts with knowing how to spot potential vulnerabilities on your device and installing antivirus software on all devices connected to the internet.
Malware
Malware is one of the most common types of cyber security. It is a term that describes harmful software that infects your computer and can steal your information or disrupt your online experience. One type of malware is called ransomware, which will encrypt all your files on the computer and demand a ransom payment to decrypt them. There are many other types too such as keyloggers, viruses, worms, trojans, and spyware. The most important thing you can do to protect yourself from these malicious pieces of code is to use an antivirus program and firewall software. You should also always back up your data so that if something does happen, you won’t lose everything. Make sure you know what types of cyber security exist so you’re prepared for anything! Some examples of specific types of cyber security are phishing scams, website spoofing, denial-of-service attacks, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), botnets, and man-in-the-middle attacks.
Denial of Service Attacks
One type of cyber security attack is a denial of service (DoS) attack. This type of attack occurs when an attacker overloads a system with requests, causing it to crash and become unavailable to legitimate users. DoS attacks can be devastating to businesses, as they can prevent customers from accessing your website or using your online services. To protect against this kind of attack, you should invest in some type of monitoring service that will alert you if a denial-of-service attack is occurring. When there’s an attack underway, the vendor will take measures to stop the intruder.
DDoS Attacks: A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack involves multiple systems sending out packets of data to overwhelm a targeted system and force it offline. A botnet is often used for this type of attack since it creates many different points where information packets are sent. Like any other cyberattack, DDoS attacks are difficult to defend against because the number of incoming requests can’t be predicted.
Password Attacks
A password attack is one of the most common types of cyber security attacks. This is when a hacker tries to gain access to your account by guessing or stealing your password. They may use a dictionary attack, which is where they try common words and phrases, or a brute force attack, which is where they try every possible combination of characters until they guess your password. To protect yourself from these types of attacks, you should use a strong password that is difficult to guess and change it regularly. However, a more secure way of protecting your passwords is with two-factor authentication. For example, with Gmail, you can turn on Google’s 2-step verification process and set up an app password as well as other ways for logging in such as text messages or voice calls. With Facebook, you can choose to get a code through SMS text message or call each time you log in. It’s worth noting that if someone has your phone number, they’ll also have access to any apps on your phone like Facebook or Google Hangouts so be sure not to store sensitive information there.
Man in the Middle Attacks
A man-in-the-middle attack is a type of cyber attack where the attacker inserts themselves into communication between two parties. The attacker can then intercept, view, and even modify the data being exchanged. This type of attack can be devastating because the victim may not even be aware that they’re being attacked. Fortunately, it’s easy to prevent this type of attack with a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
VPNs are programs that create an encrypted connection between your computer and another computer over the internet.
With VPN software installed on your device, all your internet traffic will be encrypted and sent through the secure connection established by the VPN provider.
If someone tries to access or tamper with your network traffic, it will look like gibberish for them as long as you have strong encryption on your device.
All your browsing history, passwords, photos, videos, and documents will also be protected from prying eyes when using a VPN.
You can think of it as having a private tunnel under the street to send data back and forth without anyone seeing what’s going on inside that tunnel.
Depending on how much bandwidth you need for streaming video or transferring large files online, you should get either a personal or business-class VPN plan.
Remotely Working
In the age of the internet, more and more people are working remotely. While this can have a lot of benefits, it also comes with some risks. One of the biggest risks is cyber security. Here are some different types of cyber security you should be aware of if you work remotely.
Anti-Virus: Any files downloaded to your computer should automatically run an anti-virus scan on them. A good rule of thumb is to never download any file without running an anti-virus scan first.
Password Protection: Your password must protect your laptop when working remotely so that no one else can get access to your personal information without knowing the password. The best way to do this is by setting up a screen lock. If someone steals your laptop, they won’t be able to use it because they won’t know the password.
Conclusion:
With cybercrime on the rise, it’s important to keep up with any new developments in the field of cyber security, as well as any new attacks and methods that hackers employ. In this guide, we have gone over the different types of cyber security you should know about to keep your network safe from attack, whether you run your own business or you work in the IT department of an established company. Read it thoroughly.
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