Cybersecurity is an fast-moving and an ever changing industry. This means that there’s always new avenues for cyberattacks. While significant security breaches are often those that get publicized by the media, small organizations still have to concern themselves with security breaches as they are often the target of viruses and phishing attacks. Therefore, to protect organizations, employees and individuals, organizations should implement cybersecurity tools, cyber-security training, risk management approaches and continually keep themselves to to date with the latest cyber trends.

The process of keeping up with new technologies, security trends and threat intelligence is definitely not a walk a park. However, it’s necessary in order to protect information and other assets from cyber threats, which take many forms. Here are 4 frequently used cyber-threats:

Malware

A malware is a contraction of malicious software. Simply explained, a malware is any piece of software that was written with the intent of damaging devices, stealing data, and generally causing a mess. Viruses, worms, Trojans, spywares and ransomwares just some of the different kinds of malware frequently used. Malware is often created by teams of hackers: usually, they’re just looking to make money, either by spreading the malware themselves or selling it to the highest bidder on the Dark Web. However, there can be other reasons for creating malware too — it can be used as a tool for protest, a way to test security, or even as weapons of war between governments.

Ransomware

Ransomware attacks are a type of malware that involves an attacker locking the victim’s organisation’s computer system (typically through encryption) and demanding a payment to decrypt and unlock them. Fitness brand, Garmin, was encountered with one of the high profiled ransomware attacks reportedly valued at $10million. You surely don’t want something like that happening to your organisation.

Social Engineering

Social engineering is an attack that relies on human interaction to trick users into breaking security procedures to gain sensitive information that is typically protected.

Phishing

Phishing is a form of fraud where fraudulent emails are sent that resemble emails from reputable sources; however, the intention of these emails is to steal sensitive data, such as credit card or login information.

Therefore, implementing a tailored Cyber Security strategy is the best way for your business to secure your cyber resources, and play within the increasingly stricter guidelines on personal data protection. As they say in Cyber Security, “your security is only as strong as your weakest link”. A strong cyber security foundation in the entire organisation, is bound to not only allow organisations to avoid penalties, but also to bring about greater confidence from prospective customers. So are you, or your organization ready to go against cyber-attacks? If not, register yourself, or your employees up for Hackwagon’s Cyber Security courses which comprises of 3 levels – 101, 102 and 103 today!