The spectre of cyber crime has long hung over UK organisations, and the threats are becoming more sophisticated as the years go by. With both large multinational corporations and small to medium sized enterprises being targeted by cyber criminals, knowing the nature of potential threats is crucial.
After all, it’s not a topic that any of us can afford to be complacent about, and articles such as this don’t make for pleasant reading. Indeed, as the figures from the National Cyber Security Centre show, in 2022 the UK was subject to a worrying volume of attacks, many requiring a response at a national level. So what are the most prevalent types of attack that we should expect to see in 2023?
Ransomware
This threat remains a major danger to all organisations, as it can successfully shut down all of the operations that are essential for a business to run, and allow cyber criminals to extort vast sums from their victims. As the name suggests, this type of attack sees malicious software deployed in order to encrypt data files or immobilise computer systems, with a “ransom” demanded within a given time frame. If the money is not handed over to the criminals, sensitive data may be destroyed or released as a “breach”, which can cause the target organisation reputational damage.
Phishing
Another popular move from cyber criminals, phishing now takes on various forms, including “spear phishing”, which seeks to target a particular individual. The criminals use tactics to try and get a user to divulge login details, personal data, and other valuable credentials, through a variety of tactics such as linking to a counterfeit website. Training and awareness is the best defence against falling for this kind of attack, but ensuring robust verification is also important, such as AML ID verification. More information about this approach may be found at specialist sites such as w2globaldata.com/an-idiots-guide-to-aml-kyc-id-verification/
AI Powered Attacks
The growing popularity of cloud computing has transformed the operations of many organisations, but sadly, its benefits have also led to its adoption by cyber criminals, who have harnessed its incredible processing power to be able to launch huge volumes of automated attacks on multiple targets. This type of attack can include phishing, launching malware, to “Data poisoning”, in which the training data used to “teach” machine learning technologies is corrupted with malicious content.
