“Cyber Threats are many, varied, and always evolving”

It’s 2021 and cybersecurity is big business. If we see the history of cybersecurity then it’s very long and revolutionary but the last decade is quite important for cybersecurity. In the last decade, there has been lots of evolution and growth in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity evolves in both threat and response to those threats. Cyber criminals now have more innovative ways to perform more devastating attacks. This decade made companies rethink their cybersecurity strategies. With the evolution of cloud and IoT devices, cyber attackers are now entering our networks. By keeping all factors in mind, we will take a close look at how cybersecurity evolved in the last decade.

Evolution of Cyber Threats

The type of cyber threat evolved a lot in the last decade. This new cyber threat puts organizations in difficult situations when it comes to defending against them. There are a few cyber threats along with some cyber-attacks which took place in the last decade.

Spyware: Malware is a kind of malicious software that is designed to harm systems and networks by changing their normal process and logic. Over the years, cyber attackers evolved this malicious software from simple system harm to damage enemy country security projects. With the ongoing evolution of this malicious software, it’s hard to imagine what’s going to be next. Maybe future malware attacks are nearly impossible to detect and eliminate.
Malware: Spyware is a kind of malware that infiltrates computers intending to steal all important information, credentials, and much more critical information.

Malware and Spyware Attacks of the Last Decade

2011: In this year, Sony Corporation announced that hackers stole 77 million user information from its PlayStation.
2013: This is one of the high-profile data leak incidents when Snowden revealed the sensitive information of foreign governments which were stolen with the help of spyware technology.

Ransomware: This is a kind of malware when attackers hostage the systems and deny access to users. In return for providing user access back, they demand a hefty amount of money. This malware can take place in the system by downloading any file or image. The Speed at Which a Business Falls Victim to Ransomware.

Man in the Middle Attacks (MitM): This is a kind of cyber attack on communication. This attack takes place when a cybercriminal can listen to the talk of the victim when they think that they are communicating privately. These attacks can be stopped by end-to-end encryption.

Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks (DDoS): These types of attacks occur when attackers flood the networks with requests that make them unavailable. The motive behind these types of attacks is to halt business operations or services.

Cryptojacking: Cryptojacking is one of the newly evolved threats. This allows attackers to use the victim’s computer secretly for mining cryptocurrencies.

Evolution of Cybersecurity Solutions

Encryption: Encryption is a process to protect data from cyber threats. It protects various types of data such as text messages and banking information sent through your online account. Encryption makes data unreadable for unauthorized persons.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): We all know that a strong password is not enough for account security. Two-Factor Authentication provides an additional layer to your account security. Two-Factor Authentication protects users against phishing attacks, social engineering, password brute force attack.

Backup your data: Backup data is one of the best practices to secure data from any type of ransomware attack. This practice can turn into a lifesaver during a cyber attack.

Manage IoT security: We all know that the Internet of Things(IoT) market is growing rapidly. The main concern about IoT devices is that they have access to sensitive information like security cameras, printers, and many more. In terms of securing these devices, companies need to implement endpoint security solutions, firewalls, and a scalable security framework.

Embrace education and training: In this evolution of cyber security threats, it’s quite hard to protect devices from vulnerability. But awareness and training about cybersecurity threats can save your data and devices.

Conclusion

As Cyberattacks keep evolving and become more complex, the cybersecurity industry will continue to face new challenges and they need to work on new technologies to tackle these attacks. They need to focus on their effort to find ways to secure this digital world from cyber threats. Everyone needs to take their privacy and security seriously.

THANKS TO:

Apoorva Singh Thakur