Technology has changed our lives in every aspect. Our dependence on technology ranges from communicating, collaborating, managing projects, collecting data, and conducting e-commerce and entertainment.
Every business organization, whether big or small, attests to the impact technology has had on their business. But as technology evolves, so do cyber crimes and the cyber criminals’ focus on identifying vulnerable security systems for their advantage. Therefore, it is essential for organizations to protect their networks from attacks and to be in the loop when these attacks happen; it is crucial to install a search engine for security intelligence.
Currently, there are many sources aiming to provide the latest credible, non-biased IT security news to ensure people are kept abreast of daily occurrences within this constantly evolving sector. With the increased reliance of technology, there are also increased threats to your networks which can advesrsley affect your business output and reputation. The following are the five biggest threats to your newwork and the measures needed to protect against them:
1. Phishing
Phishing is a social engineering attack where criminals trick people into giving confidential information. It occurs when an attacker masquerades as a trusted site and tricks the users into clicking the malicious link, leading to malware installation. Recently, phishing attacks have risen and are more sophisticated, and they have more convincing capabilities in pretending to be legitimate.
Phishing does not take advantage of security weaknesses; instead, it targets unsuspecting victims who are going through their usual business. To protect yourself from phishing, ensure your email account has filters and your systems are updated, and install an antivirus.
2. Malware attacks
Malware is software installed in a system without the user’s consent. Through this software, attackers can access your system through the backdoor. Attackers accessing your system means they have the opportunity to steal the data, manipulate data or even destroy data.
Most of this malware usually comes from spam emails, malicious website downloads, or connecting your computer with infected computers. Downloads from the internet are inevitable, and to protect yourself from malware attacks, ensure you use anti-malware software and beware of downloads before you download them.
3. Denial of Service attack
Denial of service is an attack that floods your network so that the computer does not respond to your requests. Denial of service is accomplished by flooding the targeted machine with excessive requests to prevent legitimate requests from being fulfilled. During these times when your network is not responding, attackers use the time to launch other attacks.
A distributed denial of service occurs when the bandwidth of a target system is flooded. To protect yourself from denial of service attacks, ensure you have multi-level protection strategies. Use anti-spam, content filtering, VPN, firewalls, load balancing, and security layers to block attacks before they happen.
4. Man in the Middle attack
Man in the middle attack occurs when attackers insert themselves in parties’ transactions. The perpetrator positions themselves between the user and the application and makes it appear that a normal exchange of information is happening. They are able to achieve this through impersonating and eavesdropping.
A successful man in the middle attack has interception and decryption phases. During the transaction, they interrupt traffic, filter, and steal data. However, you can protect yourself from these attacks by ensuring you have a secure internet connection and by visiting sites with a secure HTTP connection using the Secure Socket layer.
5. Trojan Horse.
A Trojan Horse virus is a malware that downloads onto a computer and appears legitimate but is infected with many viruses. Most Trojan horse viruses spread through social engineering. It comes disguised as an attachment in an email or a free-to-download file. Once they are downloaded, the malicious code executes the tasks the attacker designed it for. In most instances, it is used to log keystrokes to steal highly sensitive data.
An indication of a Trojan Horse presence is unusual activity and unauthorized activity on your computer. To protect yourself from this security threat, keep your software up to date, keep your internet connection as secure as possible, and ensure you put up a software and hardware firewall.
Final Thought
Network security is an area of concern for your network. With the continuous evolution of the internet, we can be sure that security vulnerabilities and threats will continue to occur. However, we can always protect ourselves from these vulnerabilities by installing search engines for security intelligence tools. They help in finding exposed devices and tracking threats.