Due to the increase in multiple technologies, businesses are getting a lot of advantages but to increase in technologies is also leading to the increase in a number of cyber threats by various processes. Cyber threats can have major impacts on businesses of all sizes including financial and reputational damage. This impact can vary depending on the severity of the attacks.
Individuals and businesses should have knowledge about these cybersecurity threats and how hackers misuse the information from several techniques. Therefore in this article, comprehensive knowledge has been provided about the Cybersecurity threats and the top 10 Cybersecurity threats in 2024.
What are Cybersecurity Threats?
Cybersecurity threats are actions carried out primarily by hackers or attackers with malicious intent, with the goal of stealing data, causing damage, or interfering with computer systems. The main categories of cyber threats are- malware, injection attacks, social engineering, configuration mistakes, and so on. Cybersecurity can be originated from multiple sources from hostile nation states to individual hackers on contractors who abuse their privilege to perform the harmful acts.
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Top 10 Cybersecurity Threats in 2024
Multiple Cybersecurity threats are performed by hackers to harm the data of an organization or business. Some of the most important cybersecurity threats are mentioned below:
1. Phishing Attacks
Phishing Attacks are well-known cybersecurity threats that are targeted through digital messages and are transmitted among people who have less knowledge of clicking on an unknown link that can install any harmful data. Phishing attacks are mainly performed by clicking on suspicious links. These attacks enable the hackers to steal the user’s login, personal financial information, and credit card credentials.
2. Social Engineering
Social Engineering is one of the popular cybersecurity threats which is mostly dependent on human errors rather than technical errors which makes these attacks more dangerous. In 2023, social engineering strategies were the key method for getting the employee’s data and credentials. More than 75% of targeted cyberattacks begin with an e-mail. Phishing is one of the well-known causes of data breaches.
3. SQL Injections
SQL Injections is another famous cybersecurity threat which is a type of code-based vulnerability that allows the attacker to read and also to access personal data from the database. Therefore the attacker can use the sensitive data from the database and further can use SQL queries to modify, update, add, or delete the records in a database. This sensitive information may include the company’s data, user lists, or customer details.
4. Vulnerabilities in Cloud
Cloud vulnerabilities are increasing and are one of the popular cybersecurity threats. The IBM reports confirm that cloud vulnerabilities have increased 150% in the past five years. Gartner cloud security is one of the fastest-growing technologies in recent years. Verizon’s DBIR has found that more than 90% of the 29000 breaches analyzed in the report were mainly caused by website application breaches.
5. IoT Attacks
The Internet of Things(IoT) attacks is another famous cybersecurity threat that mainly involves adding internet connectivity to a system of interrelated computing devices, digital machines, and mechanical machines. It has been observed that more than 70% of households consist of at least one smartphone in their house which results in attacks on smart or Internet of Things (IoT) devices with more than 1.5 billion breaches occurring between January and June 2021. IoT connectivity has opened a world of vulnerabilities for hackers and the average smart device is attacked within 5 minutes of connecting to the internet.
6. Low Data Management
Data management is very important in businesses and it is not just keeping the storage and organization’s systems clean but it is also putting things in place. The amount of data has been developed by the consumers which doubles every four years but more than half of that new data is never used or analyzed. Therefore piles of surplus data lead to confusion which leaves the data vulnerable to cyber attacks. The breaches that are caused by data handling mistakes can be as costly as higher-tech cybersecurity attacks.
7. DDos
Distributed denial of service attack(DDos) is another famous attack that is done to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server or the network. Therefore, DDoS attacks are generally carried out with the networks of Internet-connected machines. These networks consist of the computers and the other devices which are actually been infected with the malware by further allowing them to be controlled by a hacker or attacker.
8. Ransomware
Ransomware is the type of malware that locks and encrypts a victim’s data, systems, or files rendering them unusable until the attackers receive a ransom payment. Between 2018 to 2020 the average ransom fee increased from $5000 to $200000. The ransomware attacks also cost the companies in the form of income lost while the hackers hold the systems access for ransom. Therefore the average length of system downtime after a ransomware attack is 21 days.
9. Mobile Device Attacks
Mobile device vulnerabilities have increased in remote works which led to an uptick of companies implementing the bring your own device policies. Hence the cybercriminals targeted mobile device management systems which were designed to allow companies to manage the company devices in such a way that it keeps corporate data secure. For example – During COVID-19 the use of mobile devices has increased, hence not only the remote users depend on the mobile but also the pandemic experts also encourage large-scale adoption of mobile wallets and touchless payment technology in order to control the germs transmission. Therefore a large population of users represents the larger target for cybercriminals.
10. Third-Party Vulnerabilities
The third-party breach occurred at the beginning of 2021 when the hackers leaked personal data from more than 214 million Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts. Hackers or attackers get around security systems by hacking the less protected networks that belong to the third party that has privileged access to the hacker’s primary target. Therefore the hackers were able to access the data by breaching third-party contractors known as SocialArks that had been employed by the three companies and had privileged access to their networks.
Conclusion
With the increase in multiple organizations and other companies, everything is dependent on the Internet and new technologies such as regular devices which we are using every day, and due to this there are a lot of cybersecurity threats increasing day by day. Therefore in this article, detailed knowledge has been provided about the cybersecurity threats and the top 10 cybersecurity threats that are used by hackers for doing malicious acts in 2024.
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FAQs
What do you mean by Cybersecurity threat?
Cybersecurity threat is a harmful act which seeks to damage the data, steal the data or disrupt the digital life. It includes computer viruses, Denial of service attacks, data breaches and other attack vectors.
Are cybersecurity threats increasing day by day?
Yes, cybersecurity threats are increasing day by day. The rate and cost of the data breaches are increasing. Since 2001 the count of cybersecurity threats victim has been increasing from 6 victims per hour to 97 victims per hour.
Name the most common cybersecurity threats.
There are various cybersecurity threats which are used by the attackers to perform harmful acts. Some of the well known cybersecurity threats are – Phishing, Social engineering, weak passwords, malware and many more.