What are cyberattacks? And what are the best mechanisms to protect ourselves from the prevalent cyberattacks?
A cyberattack is an assault launched by cybercriminals using computer systems against an individual or an organizations’ information system. The attackers conduct the cyberattacks for many different reasons, including financial gain, theft, grudge, espionage, political, cyberterrorism and so much more motives. More specifically, the threat agents launch cyberattack to gain unauthorized access into computer systems by staging phishing, malware, social engineering, brute force, and so on means.
The attacks are mainly perpetrated to affect confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA) of assets. Moreover, cyberattacks may cause information disclosure, data corruption or malfunction, and disruption of businesses. Due to the proliferation of electronic devices, cyberattacks can be lunched from anywhere and anytime. According to some research based studies, 90 % of cyberattacks happen because of human mistakes and negligence. Therefore, cyber-aware workforce and society would avoid much percentage of cyberattacks. Besides, security updates, patches and security controls such as firewalls, authentications, access controls, encryption, IDS/IPS, SIEM and so on play crucial role in safeguarding valuable assets.