How confident are you in your IT skills?
No matter what you answered, confidence alone can’t save you. Cyber-attacks are some of the biggest existential crises a business can face, and many businesses are still underprepared for even common methods of a cyberattack.
Here are 4 current cybersecurity threats that all businesses must prepare for.
1. Weak Passwords
Yes, it’s somehow still an issue in the current year. The human need to keep things simple also holds back your business security measures. Your cybersecurity is only as strong as its weakest link, which is bad news for a company with poor password hygiene.
Still, there are many things businesses can do to enforce stronger passwords now. Improved password security measures like complex password requirements or multi-factor authentication can help to avoid this ancient problem.
2. Social Engineering
Humans remain the weak link in many cyber defenses. There’s no escaping that we’re a gullible species.
Social engineering threats take the form of malicious actors adopting tactics designed to coax information out of cooperative parties. One of the most common methods is phishing, which often involves sending an email designed to appear legitimate, prompting a user to enter sensitive data on an insecure website.
Social engineering attacks can be tricky to spot, however, and the best defense against them lies in an educated workforce.
3. Excessive Permissions
Just like weak passwords, this is one is a great demonstration that many cybersecurity threats have internal roots.
User privileges define the degree of access a user has to a system, both in terms of what they can access and what they can do with said access. In businesses with poor cybersecurity, excessive permissions can cause both internal and external security problems. Disgruntled employees could cause disproportionate damage. User accounts with excessive permissions could also fall into the hands of cybercriminals.
In reality, user privileges should be defined on a strict, need-to-know basis. No one should have permissions above what their role in the company demands, particularly when it comes to sensitive data.
4. DDoS Attacks
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial-of-Service attack and describes a method through which cyber attackers can inundate a site with requests, crippling it. It’s notoriously hard to defend against while being relatively easy to achieve, as far as cyberattacks go.
This makes a DDoS a nightmarish situation for a business. A site might be out of commission for hours and even held to ransom, and there’s no guarantee that it won’t recur. You’ll need strong computer support to respond to a DDoS attack and restore your services with minimal disruption.
Current Cybersecurity Threats You Need to Know
These four current cybersecurity threats are some of the most common businesses face, but there are plenty more where they came from. Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving challenge, and your knowledge needs to evolve with it—so keep your ear to the ground.
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