While we have spoken enough about epidemics and pandemics, we often use the use without realising the threat that lies deep within the cyberworld. Over the last few decades, these cyberattacks have shaken the entire business world and has caused more damage than any pandemic. You will be surprised to know that alone in 2016, more than 700 cyberattacks took place and the amount of damage it cost is in trillion dollars. In 2017, the ransomware attack has paralyzed many big companies, attackers literally blackmailed these companies and threatened them of stealing their important financial data. Thus, online is a blessing for those who use it wisely, keeping in mind the risks that comes along with it.
There are many types of cyber-attacks that the world has seen, but the most common of them are:
- DDoS attack – Denial-of-service and Distributed Denial of Service is what DDoS stands for. Here the malware overloads a system and cripples all its resources, such that it is unable to respond to any service requests. E-commerce businesses are most vulnerable to this type of attacks.
- Smurf Attack – Here the IP address gets spoofed, so that spoofed address goes to all the IPs in the range, and response goes back to the original address of the victim. This attack leads to huge network congestion. Competitors can run this kind of attack to hijack sales on an important holiday.
Apart from these two major types of attacks, there are many others like replay attack, session attack, phishing attacks, password attack and eavesdropping attacks. While some attacks are run to spy over your business or cripple your sales for a day or two, others are all designed by cyber-criminals to ruin your entire business.
Now that we know the common types of attacks, let’s study the top 4 attacks that shook the entire IT world.
Let’s start backwards, No. 3 on our list of attacks is Adobe.
In 2013, the world experienced the biggest hacking event. The gigantic IT infrastructure of Adobe was hijacked and information worth million was stolen, within no time. This information included, logins, passwords, financial account details, customer info, contracts and many other critical info. Fortunately, the password was all double layer encrypted, thus the banking part was taken care. The biggest shocking aspect of this attack was that 40 GB source code of Acrobat reader and Photoshop was stolen.
The Lesson: The attack could have been even more dangerous, if the banking passwords and customer details passwords were not heavily encrypted. Thus, it is extremely important to use a network infrastructure that provides high-quality data encryption.
No. 2 on our list of attacks is Sony’s PlayStation.
The multiplayer gaming platform contained the personal data of more than 70 million users, this data included the users banking information. In April 2011, this gaming platform’s network was hijacked and the banking information of more than 10,000 players was compromised. The company not only lost money but also the trust of its users. Although the company paid its users a heavy compensation, yet it failed to regain their trust.
The Lesson: Sony could have easily avoided this attack, they left all the data unencrypted and thus, the attacks took advantage of this vulnerability and easily hacked their network.
No 1. Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The brand Sony did not learn from its previous mistakes, and in Nov 2014, the entertainment division of Sony was attacked by malware. The company lost a lot of intellectual property like film scripts, emails, compositions etc. What really made this attack worse is the theft of 40,000+ employee’s personal data, including their salary account details.
The Lesson: Once again, this attack was due to IT infrastructure failure. In an audit, it was clear there were serious loopholes in the IT system. The firewall and servers were neither encrypted nor managed efficiently. It was a serious case of IT team mismanagement.
The Bottom Line:
Today we do not have robbers with guns, coming to attack us. Today, the attackers are all hiding behind the online networks. Thus, maintaining proper cyber hygiene is mandatory. Hire the best minds and provide them with the best IT solutions. An IT budget will help you build a strong and robust network infrastructure that will keep you safe, no matter what.
