The global population has moved into this new year with a different way of living after experiencing the unfolding events of 2020. As such, the reliability of an internet connection has never been so important. It enables us to stay social with friends, colleagues, and family and keeps our businesses afloat and on track. The digital connection between everyone is there, and as much as it’s appreciated and needed, most of us aren’t aware of the hidden dangers and threats to our data and privacy. While names like VeriSign and Google’s ReCAPTCHA help us keep safe online, these aren’t the only steps we need to take. Below, we explore cybersecurity in 2021 and all you need to know to stay safe and secure online.
What is Cybercrime?
Cybercrime can be classed into two types: one being where criminals or hackers target a network, and another is where criminals use computer systems for illegal or criminal behavior and more than likely posing as someone else and using identity information.
However, it comes in lots of forms. These are the most common attacks a business or individual may face:
- DoS and DDoS – Denial of Service and
- Distributed Denial of Service
- MitM – Man in the Middle
- Phishing and Spear Phishing
- Drive-by
- Password Related
- SQL Injection
- XSS – Cross-Site Scripting
- Eavesdropping
- Malware
These nine cyber attacks can cause devastation. However, as cybercrime grows and evolves, along with technology, becoming more complex and using new and varied techniques for computer system intrusion, data collection, and manipulation, it becomes a much big problem for businesses. Therefore, it is vital that you know what each element can do and how you can protect yourself from it. We will look at three examples below.
Protecting Against Security Breaches
In 2020, as the global population stayed tuned to what was going on daily, there were new and emerging data security and privacy issues rapidly coming to light. Tensions over technology with China and large-scale nation-state cyberattacks and intrusions developed in the background of a global pandemic. During this year, a new administration will undoubtedly address and approach these issues, seeking a solution for more focused data security and privacy measures. For the small part in prevention, outsourcing to F1 Solutions Inc would be a good option to protect a business if security breaches escalated further.
Educating on Phishing Attacks
At some point, an individual may have received a particular piece of junk mail that has got through any filters and has been sent from an unrecognized email address or correspondent – this is phishing. This method of cybercrime gives thought to how a business email address has been used, exploited, or even hacked by various cyber threats. Luckily, professional IT solution providers have teams of industry experts at hand to put a stop to these underlying issues and immediate threats.
Getting a network protected and data backed up are smart moves by a business going forward into the year and being prepared for the next new virus or phishing threat to come to life and be revealed.
Be Aware of The Citadel Banking Trojan
As well as being aware of threats that are happening right now, you should know about previous attacks, such as the Citadel Banking Trojan. Initially discovered in 2012, this wooden horse was created to steal financial and sensitive data, including passwords, from public and private organizations and made itself famous between 2013 and 2016. Citadel plus its strains and variants of code had been reported to have affected millions of computer systems, causing massive financial damage.
February 2013 – NBC’s website was affected.
January 2014 – US Shopping brand, Target was affected.
September 2014 – Middle Eastern petrochemical companies were affected.
April 2016 – Another variant called Atmos was discovered.
With variants already showing in 2016, this means it could happen again, and as a business owner, you must be prepared for this.
