The World Wide Web can be quite dangerous, when you don’t know where you’re heading. When online, you need to be very vigilant about who you talk to and who you share personal affix with. You should be very wary of who you give personal information, such as bank details and home address to. But how can you be sure that the website you’re on is a legitimate bank site and not a forgery? Cyber criminals use a number of methods to lure their victims into parting with their personal information.
As an end user or small business owner, you need to do your utmost to ensure you never fall prey to any of these threats.
Here’s a list of 7 of the most common security threats that you should be familiar with:
1. Ransomware
The dangers of ransomware should already be known to you, considering how popular they are. Recent studies have shown that this form of malware is set to remain a major issue for businesses for a long time to come.
Ransomware is designed to prevent users from accessing confidential information on their systems without first parting with some money. However, end users may not always gain access to their system once they’ve given money, as cyber criminals are known to be quite persistent in their extortions.
2. Rogue Security Software
While surfing the internet have you ever encountered a pop-up message alerting you to some security issue? These messages look relatively legitimate and demand that you click on a particular link to install an update that will remove the threat from your system. In many cases this is actually rogue security software designed to lure you into downloading and installing malicious software. Microsoft has taken the time to describe exactly what rogue security software is and how to detect it – so check that out.
3. Spyware
Spyware is basically malicious software designed to infiltrate and spy on your system. An example of a spyware would be key-logger software, which is designed to record the keystrokes of an end user. This information is then sent back to the original creator of the virus. Key-logger software is very easy to get your hands on, as it is marketed to end users, most specifically parents, as a way of monitoring what their children get up to while on the internet.
4. Drone Jacking
Drones are being used in new and exciting ways by consumers and organisations, creating the perfect opportunity for cyber criminals to take advantage of it, for their own gain.
From reports compiled, it’s already known how easy it is for someone, who has a decent understanding of these devices to hack into a drone, and land it where they deem fit, whether it’s a home, business or public space, all through a wireless network.
5. Mobile Malware
There are an increasing number of mobile users and devices out there that is only set to grow with time. As this number increases, cyber criminals become more and more drawn to the lure to exploiting this technology.
From recent reports, it has shown that, over the period of 2015 to 2016, mobile malware attacks more than tripled, with over 8.5 million virus infections. The same report also discovered that instances of both mobile ransomware and banking Trojan horse attacks also increased by more than 1.5 times, within the same year period.
6. Spam
Spam is used primarily as a term to describe email spam, unwanted emails that linger within our email accounts. Spam is a problem as it ultimately ends up cluttering our mailbox, taking up space on the mail server, and in some cases, prohibiting us from receiving new mail. This unwanted junk mail that you are receiving, is for the most part harmless. However, some of this spam can contain links, which takes you to websites where malicious software is installed on your system.
7. Phishing
Phishing scams are basically attempts by cybercriminals to obtain confidential data from you. These phishing scams are usually disseminated in emails, designed to appear like legitimate emails from legitimate sources.
For example, a phishing email may try and lure you into giving your personal affix, by pretending to be a bank or some other services, demanding that you update your account by clicking on a particular email to access your account. Once you click on the link, it’ll usually take you to a mirrored site that looks very similar to the real thing, where it will proceed to ask you for your account and login details.
—AUTHOR INFO—
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website https://www.compuchenna.co.uk.
