Network and Website Security Risks

Most businesses view their website as one of their biggest assets, and while it certainly can be, it can also be the biggest vulnerability.

All the hard work your company does to generate traffic and promote itself online can go up in flames if you’re not protected from network security threats.

Network security risks are so troublesome because you may not be aware of an issue until the damage has been done.

If you haven’t already, you need to start protecting your company’s network now. Below, we’re discussing some of the most common network security risks and the problems they can cause.

The most common network and Website Security threats-

1. Computer virus

We’ve all heard about them, and we all have our fears. For everyday Internet users, computer viruses are one of the most common threats to cybersecurity. Statistics show that approximately 33% of household computers are affected with some type of malware, more than half of which are viruses.

Computer viruses are pieces of software that are designed to be spread from one computer to another. They’re often sent as email attachments or downloaded from specific websites with the intent to infect your computer and other computers on your contact list by using systems on your network. Viruses are known to send spam, disable your security settings, corrupt and steal data from your computer including personal information such as passwords, even going as far as to delete everything on your hard drive.

2. Rogue security software

Leveraging the fear of computer viruses, scammers have a found a new way to commit Internet fraud.

Rogue security software is malicious software that mislead users to believe there is a computer virus installed on their computer or that their security measures are not up to date. Then they offer to install or update users’ security settings. They’ll either ask you to download their program to remove the alleged viruses, or to pay for a tool. Both cases lead to actual malware being installed on your computer.

3. Trojan horse

Metaphorically, a “Trojan horse” refers to tricking someone into inviting an attacker into a securely protected area. In computing, it holds a very similar meaning — a Trojan horse, or “Trojan,” is a malicious bit of attacking code or software that tricks users into running it willingly, by hiding behind a legitimate program.

They spread often by email; it may appear as an email from someone you know, and when you click on the email and its included attachment, you’ve immediately downloaded malware to your computer. Trojans also spread when you click on a false advertisement.

Once inside your computer, a Trojan horse can record your passwords by logging keystrokes, hijacking your webcam, and stealing any sensitive data you may have on your computer.

4. Adware and spyware

By “adware” we consider any software that is designed to track data of your browsing habits and, based on that, show you advertisements and pop-ups. Adware collects data with your consent and is even a legitimate source of income for companies that allow users to try their software for free, but with advertisements showing while using the software. The adware clause is often hidden in related User Agreement docs, but it can be checked by carefully reading anything you accept while installing software. The presence of adware on your computer is noticeable only in those pop-ups, and sometimes it can slow down your computer’s processor and internet connection speed.

When adware is downloaded without consent, it is considered malicious.

Spyware works similarly to adware, but is installed on your computer without your knowledge. It can contain keyloggers that record personal information including email addresses, passwords, even credit card numbers, making it dangerous because of the high risk of identity theft.

5. Computer worm

Computer worms are pieces of malware programs that replicate quickly and spread from one computer to another. A worm spreads from an infected computer by sending itself to all of the computer’s contacts, then immediately to the contacts of the other computers.

A worm spreads from an infected computer by sending itself to all of the computer’s contacts,, then immediately to the contacts of the other computers

6. DOS and DDOS attack

Have you ever found yourself waiting impatiently for the online release of a product, one that you’re eagerly waiting to purchase? You keep refreshing the page, waiting for that moment when the product will go live. Then, as you press F5 for the last time, the page shows an error: “Service Unavailable.” The server must be overloaded!

There are indeed cases like these where a website’s server gets overloaded with traffic and simply crashes, sometimes when a news story breaks. But more commonly, this is what happens to a website during a DoS attack, or denial-of-service, a malicious traffic overload that occurs when attackers overflood a website with traffic. When a website has too much traffic, it’s unable to serve its content to visitors.

A DoS attack is performed by one machine and its internet connection, by flooding a website with packets and making it impossible for legitimate users to access the content of flooded website. Fortunately, you can’t really overload a server with a single other server or a PC anymore. In the past years it hasn’t been that common if anything, then by flaws in the protocol.

A DDoS attack, or distributed denial-of-service attack, is similar to DoS, but is more forceful. It’s harder to overcome a DDoS attack. It’s launched from several computers, and the number of computers involved can range from just a couple of them to thousands or even more.

Since it’s likely that not all of those machines belong to the attacker, they are compromised and added to the attacker’s network by malware. These computers can be distributed around the entire globe, and that network of compromised computers is called botnet.

Since the attack comes from so many different IP addresses simultaneously, a DDoS attack is much more difficult for the victim to locate and defend against.

7. Phishing

Phishing is a method of a social engineering with the goal of obtaining sensitive data such as passwords, usernames, credit card numbers.

The attacks often come in the form of instant messages or phishing emails designed to appear legitimate. The recipient of the email is then tricked into opening a malicious link, which leads to the installation of malware on the recipient’s computer. It can also obtain personal information by sending an email that appears to be sent from a bank, asking to verify your identity by giving away your private information.

8. Rootkit

Rootkit is a collection of software tools that enables remote control and administration-level access over a computer or computer networks. Once remote access is obtained, the rootkit can perform a number of malicious actions; they come equipped with keyloggers, password stealers and antivirus disablers.

Rootkits are installed by hiding in legitimate software: when you give permission to that software to make changes to your OS, the rootkit installs itself in your computer and waits for the hacker to activate it. Other ways of rootkit distribution include phishing emails, malicious links, files, and downloading software from suspicious websites.

9. SQL Injection attack

We know today that many servers storing data for websites use SQL. As technology has progressed, network security threats have advanced, leading us to the threat of SQL injection attacks.

SQL injection attacks are designed to target data-driven applications by exploiting security vulnerabilities in the application’s software. They use malicious code to obtain private data, change and even destroy that data, and can go as far as to void transactions on websites. It has quickly become one of the most dangerous privacy issues for data confidentiality. You can read more on the history of SQL injection attacks to better understand the threat it poses to cybersecurity.

10. Man-in-the-middle attacks

Man-in-the-middle attacks are cybersecurity attacks that allow the attacker to eavesdrop on communication between two targets. It can listen to a communication which should, in normal settings, be private.

As an example, a man-in-the-middle attack happens when the attacker wants to intercept a communication between person A and person B. Person A sends their public key to person B, but the attacker intercepts it and sends a forged message to person B, representing themselves as A, but instead it has the attackers public key. B believes that the message comes from person A and encrypts the message with the attackers public key, sends it back to A, but attacker again intercepts this message, opens the message with private key, possibly alters it, and re-encrypts it using the public key that was firstly provided by person A. Again, when the message is transferred back to person A, they believe it comes from person B, and this way, we have an attacker in the middle that eavesdrops the communication between two targets.

Here are just some of the types of MITM attacks:

• DNS spoofing
• HTTPS spoofing
• IP spoofing
• ARP spoofing
• SSL hijacking
• Wi-Fi hacking

Summary

It can seem a difficult task to keep track of all the network security threats that are out there, and the new ones that just keep emerging. Whether the media is creating a culture of fear out of being online and placing trust in leaving our information out for all to see, or whether the threats that wait in the dark corners of the Internet are truly serious and can happen to anyone, the best thing we can all do is to be prepared. There is no way to be completely sure that a system is impenetrable by cybersecurity threat. We need to ensure that our systems are as secure as possible.

Prevention of future attacks has never been easier than now with our up-to-date cyber intelligence data. Contact us for custom data enrichment solutions so you can always be prepared.