Be prepared for Cyber Attacks

5 Common Dangerous Cyber Attacks

Did you know that 43% of small businesses are the target of cyber-attacks?

Every 39 seconds, a hacker attack takes place, according to a Clark Study from the University of Maryland.

What is a Cyberattack?

Cyberattacks are unwelcome actions taken by malicious attackers in an effort to acquire unauthorized access to a website. 

The attacker usually wants to gain something from crashing the victim’s network. They engage in unwelcoming actions, usually known as cybercrime, by exposing, altering, or deleting data and files of a website. As a result, they steal data and money for personal gain.

Why do we have to protect our website from cybersecurity risk?

Cybercrimes like money theft and data theft are growing exponentially at a time when the world is becoming excessively dependent on the internet. Cyberattacks on websites with a public interface are frequent and may lead to website vandalism, website downtime, a data breach of consumer or business information, a hacker taking over the affected website, etc.

The reputation of the website and its business owner could be severely harmed by these risks. This has a direct impact on all facets of data security, including confidentiality, integrity, and availability. In addition, the business may also face financial loss as a result of losing user trust or a drop in website traffic.

The most effective safeguard against phishing scams is human intelligence and awareness, according to Cofense. Let’s first understand the various types of website cyberattacks.

5 Most common types of websites Cyberattack:

1. DDoS (Distributed denial-of-service) Attack – Imagine there is an unexpected traffic jam on the highway, which is disrupting the regular traffic to reach its destination. The DDoS attack works exactly the same way as it prevents regular traffic to visit the website with an excessive amount of internet traffic.
2. Website defacement: These are often the result of defacers breaking into a web server and uploading their own website in place of the one that is hosted.
3. Website vulnerability: Cybercriminals can secure access to a website and the data it contains by taking advantage of vulnerable spots on the website. For an instance, it could be an outdated WordPress Plugin.
4. Malware (Malicious Software): This is typically a code or a file, which works like a remote control for hackers and allows them to perform any activity virtually like infect the website, explore, steal and so on.
5. Blacklisting: If search engines discover malware on your website, it can be blocked from ranking on the search engine results page and flagged with a disclaimer that prevents visitors from visiting.

Common risks of cyberattacks:

1. Session hijacking: Most cyberattacks have the ability to hijack a user’s session and make them perform undesirable actions on a website.
2. Malicious redirects: Visitors may be redirected from the website they meant to visit to a malicious website by certain hacks.
3. Stolen data: Customers’ payment details, email addresses, and other personal data are accessible to cybercriminals as they hijack a visitor’s user experience. Hackers typically target user or customer data saved on a website.
4. SEO spam: It is possible to mislead your visitors and send them to malicious websites by adding bizarre links, pages, and comments to your website.
5. Phishing schemes: In this case, users are tricked into giving sensitive data by visiting web pages that appear legitimate but are actually malicious.

How to protect your website and your data from hacking?

To effectively secure websites, APIs and infrastructure, businesses and security professionals need to take a number of actions. 

1. Securing data with HTTPS and SSL Certificates: A visitor to your website would always expect that their data is secured and privacy is protected. Thus, you must enforce Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) and HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) and disable the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to guarantee that communications between both the website and the user are secured. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is yet another essential action, which helps prevent third parties from reading any user’s data in transit as the SSL will encrypt the information. Be it the credit card numbers, social security numbers or any login credentials, SSL protocol allows sensitive data transmission to happen securely. 
2. Taking plugin and software update requests seriously: We get timely requests for security updates every day, but in most cases, we tend to ignore them. Keep in mind that websites are being scanned for attacks by potential hackers. Thus, if a website is not up-to-date with all the plugins and software updates, which means it is not a secure website. Your priority should be frequently updating these requests that include security improvements and vulnerability fixes.
3. Ensuring the use of unique passwords: In the digital age, when we interact with databases, applications, and websites that require an ID and password, it can be challenging to keep track of everything. As a result, we happen to frequently use the same, simple passwords that are easy for us to remember. When discussing data security, this can end up being your worst mistake. Therefore, never reveal your password to anyone and always use something unique.
4. Penetration testing: Commonly referred to as a pen test, it simulates a cyber attack to inspect for a website’s weaknesses and exploitable vulnerabilities. The penetration testing helps deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to improve the web application security. A WAF protects against cyberattacks like uploading malicious code to a website that frequently targets small-mid-sized businesses. As these attacks are automated and continually scan for vulnerabilities that could let a DDoS attack launch, slowing down or crashing the website. A pen test whereas, fine-tune the WAF security policies and any vulnerabilities. 
5. End-to-end security testing: It is software testing also called Chain Testing that analyzes the software system when it is under test and examines how it integrates with external interfaces. The end-to-end security testing activities could include web application testing, network testing, cloud security assessment/testing, IoT testing, and database and API security testing. These terms that people search in search engines to solve their queries. If your content is optimized according to the keywords that search for, it is easier for crawlers to show your content to the audience first. Usually, the procedure entails determining the keywords and topics that are pertinent to your business and creating initial keywords using them. Finally, you should undertake in-depth research to find terms your target audience would use that are related. Make sure Google is aware of the terms you want this page to rank for first and use the main keyword in the title, URL, H1 tag, first 100 words of the first paragraph, meta title and meta description tags, image file name, and ALT tags.

Final words:

As you are trying to manage and expand your small-mid-sized business, we are sure that you would not want to deal with a data breach or any kind of cyber attack. 

Fortunately, there is a quick and easy approach to safeguard your website. With automated solutions that are simple to implement and plans that perfectly fit your budget, CROSS Digital Marketing Agency in Boston makes cybersecurity simple and affordable. 

With over 12 years of experience in security services, the experts at CROSS Digital are recognized as leaders in information security. So, when looking for the Best cyber security services in Boston, give us a call at 888 863 1150. 

From Web and API security, and Security assessment to application security and cloud infrastructure security, being one of the best cyber security services in Boston, we use the most effective testing methods. White box, Black box, and Gray box testing are the three testing methods used in the software testing process. Because we understand that the end-user will receive a better product if all three of these processes are followed. You can also send us an email at digital@crossdma.com to get started with us right away! For more information, visit our website CROSS Digital Marketing Agency.