Some of the Most Common Types of Cyber Attacks

Cyber-attack is one of the most common theft performed from one system or from a group of systems against one system or a group of systems.

Main goal of the attackers is to either disable or destroy the target systems and gain personal information of users for personal gain.

Cyber-attacks are much more common than we assume and do not have distinctions on who to attack who not to. Thus, it is important to be aware of these attacks and take all possible precautions.

In this blog, we will take you through some of the most common cyber-attack types.
We are listing some common methods that are used in Cyberattacks.

• Malware:

It stands for Malicious software. This type of software gets downloaded when users unknowingly download untrusted infected file or may click on some adverts which allow malicious software to be downloaded on the system. This type of software performs different malicious tasks like taking control of the victim’s system and stealing sensitive information.

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• Phishing:

In this cyber-attack, individuals disguise as a legitimate organization or representative of an organization to trick victim into shelling out important information like personal information and banking details, and use it for personal gains. Attackers generally use different methods of communications like Email, SMS, phone call, and communication over social media.
User’s should be aware of these types of communications and keep check on attachments before downloading.

• SQL Injection Attack:

SQL stands for structured query language. This type of attack works on database. Database contains all the information and it is managed by SQL. Attackers use malicious code to gain important information about server, once it is retrieved, they use different code to gain information about database and username/password stored in it.

Credential Reuse:

Most of us use same passwords for multiple accounts because we find it easy to remember single password instead of multiple passwords. However, this habit increases the chance of getting multiple accounts hacked instead of only one.
It is always advisable to use multiple passwords for different accounts, this will ensure that if one of your accounts is hacked, your other accounts will be safe.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS):

In this attack, attackers inject malicious script on the webpages. These scripts are generally browser side scripts. These scripts will run on the user’s browser and will access cookies, session tokens, credentials and other sensitive information. This information will directly transfer to attackers who then use it for their own gain.
Attackers also use this type of attack to downgrade the reputation of a legitimate website.

Denial of Service (DoS):

In DoS, attackers create heavy traffic onto the network making it shutdown. They flood the target machine or server with unnecessary requests way beyond its capacity. Once the targeted machine is overloaded, it will automatically shut down and prevent other genuine requests to be fulfilled.

Session Hijacking and Man-in-the-Middle Attacks:

As the name suggests, in this type of attack, attackers gain access to ongoing internet activity. Attackers hijack ongoing sessions and retrieve all the information being shared. Attackers can attack client/server session and person to person session.

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These types of cyberattacks are most common. In today’s world, all our information is being stored on the internet. Hackers usually take opportunity of the vulnerabilities present on the machine and services connected to internet to retrieve information and use it for malicious activities.