Mobile, cloud, and remote tools permeate almost every aspect of our daily personal and professional lives, transforming how we interact with technology on a day-to-day basis. This preponderance of tech resources has created efficiencies and advancements for both businesses and consumers while continuing to pave the way for innovation. Yet, it has also created an ever-increasing landscape for digital attacks.
In fact, the global annual cost of cybercrime in 2024 is predicted to reach $9.5 trillion — yes, TRILLION — according to Cybersecurity Ventures. On top of that is the increasing cost of damages from cybercrime, which is anticipated to top $10.5 trillion by 2025.
If that’s not enough, there were 420 million cyberattacks (that’s 13 attacks per second!) in 2023, with the attacks originating from 212 different countries — 28% of which came from the United States.
No matter your business or industry, you always need to safeguard your systems and data. Here are five of the top cybersecurity threats to watch out for — and how you can stay protected in the never-ending fight against these smooth cyber criminals.
Phishing
If you’ve ever received a strange text or email requesting personal information, you’ve experienced some form of phishing. Phishing is aptly named, as it’s plenty fishy. According to Techopedia, it’s a security exploit where the perpetrator impersonates a legitimate business or reputable person in order to acquire private and sensitive information, including credit card numbers, personal identification numbers (PINs), and passwords.
Phishing happens to be the main gateway to many other cyberattacks because it has such a high ROI for cybercriminals. In fact, according to the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), 90% of all cyberattacks begin with phishing.
There are all sorts of types of phishing, including whaling, spear phishing, smishing, clone phishing, vishing, and angler phishing.
Malware
Another super-common cyberthreat is malware — or malicious software. There are many variations of malware, including viruses, worms, keyloggers, and crypto hackers. Often, it becomes evident that your operating system is infected by malware when you experience pop-up adverts everywhere, crashes and freezes, loss of speed, and more.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a widely used form of malware that encrypts all your files, rendering them and the systems that rely on them unusable. Malicious actors then demand ransom in exchange for decryption. Often, ransomware infects your systems through drive-by malvertising campaigns, illegal download of movies and films, and phishing or scam emails with infected attachments.
Intelligent Social Engineering
Social engineering uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away confidential information — and these types of attacks are becoming more sophisticated and targeted by the day. Part of that is due to the rapid development of technology, including the ubiquity of social media, which makes it easier for cybercriminals to find their targets’ personal information and develop convincing ploys for them to release sensitive company data and more.
AI-Enhanced Cyberattacks
AI is a new frontier that is already shifting the way some industries work. Yet the progress in this realm isn’t without some downsides, not the least of which is an opening for cybercriminals to hack AI systems while also using AI to gather large amounts of data to exploit system vulnerabilities. As Techopedia points out, as AI becomes more autonomous and advanced, it will be even more susceptible to cyberattacks — especially for industries that are increasing their use of AI, like finance, transportation, healthcare, and defense.
These are only a few of the common cyberthreats among many other nefarious techniques that are being used by cybercriminals.
With these ever-evolving modes of manipulation and cybercrime, many of the network security approaches that were once reliable safeguards are no longer up to the task. That means, your computer networks may be widely vulnerable to unauthorized access, attacks, and data breaches.
Cybersecurity protection for your company should include:
- MFA everywhere
- Regular security assessments
- DNS filtering
- Sandboxing for email attachments and links
- 1st and 3rd party application/OS patching on ALL workstations
- Phishing and cybersecurity training
- High-quality MDR on all your endpoints
Don’t have all of these, or don’t know what they mean? No problem!
With Integrated IT on your side, you have an expert group of cybercrime fighters to save the day — and your business. We can provide a free security assessment and help you select a comprehensive service plan that best meets your needs.
