With the advancement in science and technology, there have been massive improvements made in the digital field. However, side-by-side there has been a rise in cybersecurity events that have often jeopardized the security of an organization or a company. When you are working in the digital field, cybersecurity is of paramount importance, or else your data might be compromised. The hacker might plant a virus in your system, or you might lose valuable information. It is therefore very important that one has a good idea of the warning event types in cybersecurity. This will enable them to be better prepared for such events in the long run. Some of the advanced cyber security courses teach about these warning event types in cybersecurity.
Malware
Have you ever seen an antivirus alert popping on your screen? Then chances are you must have clicked on an email attachment with malicious content. This means you had an encounter with malware. The hackers plant the malware for getting a strong foothold in the computer of the user. Malware is a kind of software that harms the computer or laptop. Once it enters your laptop or computer, it will cause different kinds of problems. Some problems that might arise are leaking data from the computer, closely monitoring the actions of the individual, and so on.
Cyber attackers have different methods of putting malware in your computer. However, sometimes the user also needs to take part in the action for installing the malware. This might include clicking on a link for downloading any file or opening an attachment with malware within it. This will lead to the malware getting installed on your computer.
Phishing
One learns about phishing in some of the best data science courses. The hackers are aware of the fact that individuals will not open any random email that they send them. One needs to have a good reason for opening that email. Hence, when an attacker wants to get information from your system or install malware, they will start using phishing techniques. They will pretend to be someone else so that you will take the action that you otherwise would not have taken. The attackers feed on the curiosity and impulses of the human mind for getting their work done.
The hacker will send an email from some individual whom you know and trust. The email will look legitimate and have a tone of urgency to it. It will also have a link for the user to click on it. When you click on the link, the malware will be installed on the computer. There are also chances that after you click on the link, you will be redirected to a website. You will be asked to log in to access the urgent document. It is merely a trap for getting your information and details.
To combat phishing, it is essential to verify the senders of the emails.
SQL Injection Attack
SQL is the shortened form for Structured Query Language. This is a popular programming language that is mainly used for communication purposes with databases. SQL is used by those servers that consist of important data for the websites and companies. For managing those confidential data, SQL is used. The SQL injection attack mainly targets these kinds of servers. In this cybersecurity threat, a code will be used for deriving the information from the server that the attacker would not usually get. This is highly troublesome for those servers that contain customer details like usernames, credit card numbers, passwords, and other detailed information about the customers. These are profitable details for the attackers.
This kind of cyberthreat works by targeting the vulnerabilities of the SQL server. The vulnerability is that the SQL server allows it to run malicious codes. Suppose a SQL server is vulnerable to this kind of attack. The hacker can go to the search box of the site and type the malicious code. This will force the server to give all the usernames, passwords, and other details of the customers for that site.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
This is another warning event types in cybersecurity. For the SQL injection attack, the attackers use a relatively vulnerable site for getting important data stored in the site. However, if the attacker will directly target the website, then they will choose the Cross-site-scripting technique. This is quite similar to the SQL injection attack where you install a malicious code on a site. However, the difference is that in this case, the site will not be the target. Instead, the attacker installs runs on the browser of the user who will visit this particular compromised site. They target the customers directly and not this site.
The best way of injecting malicious code is in a comment or a script that runs on its own. For example, the attacker can embed any link to a JavaScript that is malicious in a comment.
These attacks hamper the reputation of a site as it discloses the information of the users. The problem is it is hard to detect any threat as nothing malicious happens on the site. The website owners will not realize or know that the information that their users are sending are being hacked by the attackers with the help of cross-site scripting.
Denial-of-Service (DoS)
Suppose a website has more traffic than it was built for handling, then it will overload the server of the website. This will make it impossible for the site to cater to the needs of the visitors who will be trying to access this particular site. This can happen due to different reasons. Suppose important news comes out. As a result, people will try to get information about that news. However, sometimes these kinds of overload of visitors to the site are malicious. This is done by an attacker. They overwhelm the site and make it shut down for all the visitors. This is called a Denial-of-Service attack.
Sometimes, these kinds of attacks are performed by more than one computer simultaneously. This type of attack is called Distributed Denial-of-Service attack. These kinds of attacks are more difficult to stop as the hackers will be appearing from various IP addresses around the world at the same time. Hence, the network administrators will face a tough time understanding the source of these attacks.
Session Hijacking and Man-in-the-middle attacks
When an individual uses the internet, the computer transacts with different servers of the world without letting them know about your details. This does not stop you from getting the details that you are looking for. This happens when you are generally browsing or logging in to a website by providing your name and password.
The session between the computer and a remote server is assigned a session ID, and it stays private between these two parties. There are chances that the attacker will hijack this session by getting hold of the session ID and posing as the computer making the request. This will allow them to log in easily and gain information from the web server. There are other methods too that an attacker can use to steal the information like cross-site scripting attack for hijacking these session IDs.
They can also get the session ID by pretending that they are the other party in the session. This will help them to get valuable data from both sides, and this is called the man-in-the-middle attack.
Wrapping Up!
These are some of the warning event types in cybersecurity that one must know about. Though attackers will be developing new methods as per their needs, knowing about them will help combat these attacks easily. Alongside, getting a cyber security degree will impart the necessary skills and knowledge to stay protected from these threats.
