Cyber security is becoming more and more important in the globalized world. Since everything is connected, IT security should, and often is, a central focus for companies, organizations and private individuals.
The internet can be intimidating and even sometimes dangerous. There are a variety of threats which should be clarified in this, the first part of our cybersecurity definitions post.
Denial of service attacks (DoS-attacks)
In computing, denial of service attacks (DoS-attacks) describes a cyber-attack whose goal it is to disrupt web services. DoS-attacks are usually accomplished by flooding the targeted host or server with millions of inquiries, emails or data. This results in an overloaded system and the web service can no longer fulfill legitimate requests.
→ A real life example would be a group of people crowding the door of the post office so that legitimate customers can no longer enter and do their business.
DoS-attacks typically do not want to enter a network, system or data but limit or block a web service or make it useless. There is a variety of DoS-attacks like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Distributed Reflective Denial of Service (DRDoS) and Advanced Persistent Denial of Service (APDoS).
Phishing
Phishing is a technique which is used “to fish” for passwords or usernames. Its most common use is to illegally obtain credit card details or other personal banking details to make financial transactions.
Perpetrators often create similar looking online banking websites. Then they randomly sent emails with a link to the fake website. Customers are asked to fill out a form with their banking details because of security or bank internal reasons. That is how the perpetrators receive what they need to make transactions in the name of the customer.
You can enhance your cyber security through being a bit tech-savvier – don’t click on anything in an email from an unknown sender. Indeed, even if someone you know sends you a suspicious link – use caution. If you get a message saying someone has used your account to buy items from Amazon – log into your account separately to check instead.
Brute force attacks
A brute force attack is a problem-solving method in computer science, cryptanalysis and game theory. Confused? In essence, it is a repeated attempt to guess passwords and details to gain access to data. It is also known as exhaustive search, the brute force program systematically tries out different numbers, letters, and spaces to crack algorithms, log in details and passwords.
This method is often illegally used to unlock encrypted files, information, messages or passwords. The longer the key the longer it takes to unlock the encrypted data. For example, a 32-bit-key in a regular computer has four billion possibilities, which can be tried out in minutes. In contrast to 128-bit-keys where it would take several thousand years to crack the code.
to enhance your cyber security, make longer, more complicated passwords. Similarly, don’t become annoyed if you get locked out when you have guessed your password incorrectly one too many times… It’s for your protection.
Backdoors
Backdoors allow unauthorized access to computers and data. As the name suggests, the perpetrator gains access through the back door. A hidden, constantly running program often offers unlimited access to the computer. In contrast to Trojans, backdoors allow direct access to the computer and personal data. It is also possible to manipulate hard- and software, destroy data or install malware and viruses on the computer.
We will be posting the second part of our cyber security definitions next week!