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The Top 5 Biggest Cyber Security Threats 2022

Cyber threats are evolving all the time, becoming more rampant and highly sophisticated. Gartner predicts a threefold increase in the number of organizations worldwide that will experience attacks on their software supply chains by 2025, compared to 2021. The impact of a security breach could be business disruption and financial and reputational damage. Businesses should update and constantly move steps ahead in finding ways to detect and, mitigate vulnerabilities to deter cyber threats. Attackers are constantly coming up with new ways to evade automated security tools.

In this article, we will read about, Top 5 Cyber security threats lurking today and the best practices to keep your business secure. 

Phishing

Ransomware

Mobile Security attacks

Identity-based cloud security threats

Account takeover

 1. Phishing

Most security breaches are due to social engineering — where criminals trick people into unknowingly releasing confidential information, clicking on malicious links, or providing entry to secure systems. Approaches can be made via email or telephone, sometimes even using voice impersonation software to make it more convincing (also known as Smshing and Vishing, respectively). The most commonly used is an email phishing attack in which the individual is tricked into downloading malware or giving up their credentials by clicking on a link sent through an email. Phishing has become one of today’s most common and malevolent cybersecurity attacks. According to IBM Cost of Data Breach, Phishing was the costliest initial attack vector in 2022 at USD 4.91 million.

2. Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware that holds an organization’s data for ransom, either by blocking access to it or threatening to publish it. The computer itself may become locked, or the data on it might be stolen, deleted, or encrypted. The attacker demands a ransom from the victim to restore access to the data or system upon payment. Typically, ransomware is downloaded and installed when users open malicious email attachments, click on infected links, or visit infected websites. It’s an extremely widespread type of cybercrime because it is so profitable. Along with the costs of recovering, other major hitches can be operational downtime, regulatory sanctions, and potential loss of business and customer trust. The Colonial Pipeline attack was the most recent example of ransomware, with a nearly $5 million ransom being paid to regain access to files and data.

 3. Mobile security attacks

Mobiles have become an extension of daily lives where we cannot survive without them. Be it online shopping, social media usage, use of payment gateways, and maintaining our medical profiles using health monitoring apps. We use them for anything and everything. More than six billion people worldwide use smartphones, including 85% of Americans. In the U.S., mobile e-commerce spending topped $47 billion. 

 In 2022, the online shopping industry — specifically mobile and social commerce — continued to grow exponentially, and with it, the threats it imposed. As more apps come to market with commerce capabilities, more functionalities were introduced to make purchasing easier. Fake apps that looked like genuine apps infiltrated the App Store and tricked users into granting permissions or infecting their phones with viruses and malware, enabling criminals to take over accounts and gain access to sensitive data.

4. Identity-based cloud security threats

The more we rely on the cloud for data storage, the higher the risk of a major breach. Cloud services are vulnerable to a wide range of cyberattacks, but many businesses believe they can be more secure than hosting everything on premises, given that major service providers like Microsoft spend billions on security and have teams of experts constantly chasing down threats.

However, weak spots can occur, especially where some elements are self-hosted in the cloud. Typically, attacks target the identity holder — the firm rather than the service provider — and phish for staff to provide access to login details or other data. Vendors have numerous options to reduce risk, but it’s still worthwhile for enterprises to be aware of the biggest threats that are out there. According to a report from the Cloud Security Alliance, there are various threats such as Data breaches, Weak identity, credential, and access management, Insecure interfaces and APIs, System and application vulnerability, Account hijacking, Malicious insiders, data loss, shared technology usage, etc.

5. Account Takeover attacks

Account Takeover (ATO) is an attack whereby cybercriminals take ownership of online accounts using stolen passwords and usernames. Cybercriminals generally purchase a list of credentials via the dark web – typically gained from social engineering, data breaches, and phishing attacks. A 2019 Google survey found that 65% of people reuse passwords on multiple accounts if not all of them. Some users don’t modify or update their passwords frequently. Attackers then use bots to easily carry out the credential stuffing and brute force attacks, by rolling through many passwords and username combinations to accomplish account takeover. Cybercriminals can take over an existing account and use it to purchase goods or gift cards on the user’s behalf. In a case study conducted by our research team, a business account of a Company was hacked, the multi-factor authentication configuration was changed, and a gift card was purchased. When the issue was raised with the concerned Financial Institution, they refused to address it stating that an authenticated account was being used to make the purchase. Unfortunately, due to the ease of execution, this type of attack is becoming increasingly common.

Best Practices to follow to secure your business

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to cyber threats, a multi-layer defense strategy can thwart attacks. Here are some best practices that can be followed:

1. Educate your workforce about cyber security attacks. Engaging and educational security content should be shared to help prepare employees for what to expect and how to respond promptly. Proper cybersecurity training for your technical staff is also a great way to minimize the threats. Continuous monitoring by running simulated threats will help the employees understand the security posture better and have a security mindset.
2.  Deploy a strong incident response system that can detect, mitigate and reduce the loss to the business.
3. Keeping backups in a safe location can help restore your data quickly after a shorter period of downtime.
4. Patching and updating software from time to time. Many automated tools can scan for outdated applications and missing patches, making remediation more efficient. Patch Management can help in identifying and protecting systems from failures
5. Using a strong Identity and Access Management Solution which enables only authenticated users to access authorized resources. Revoking access automatically at the expiration of service will reduce vulnerabilities.
6. Use multi-factor authentication and limit password reuse. With multi-factor authentication, the attacker must also have access to the victim’s phone to access the account—even if they log in with valid credentials.

If your device is compromised, still you are secure with Rainbow Secure multi-layer authentication as it encompasses layers of colors and styles acting as 1st level defense. The device may be available to the cybercriminal and credentials be stored on it, still, your business accounts protected by Rainbow Secure cannot be accessed as it deploys colors and styles to the authentication that cannot be compromised. To know more contact the Rainbow Secure Team.