Hacking Attacks: How Your Company Can Defend Against It

Hacking attacks are carried out by professionals who use their knowledge of information technology to break into systems and obtain confidential information.

They can be divided into two groups: those doing it for profit and those doing it for revenge or fun. In any case, hacker attacks can cause significant damage to companies, leading to the loss of confidential data, interruption of service, and even the disclosure of sensitive information.

There are several hacking attacks, but some are more common than others. This article covers the three most common types of attacks and how your business can defend against them.

Why Would Your Company Be The Target Of A Hacker Attack?

Your company can be the target of a hacker attack for several reasons. Your systems may contain vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to access your internal networks.

 Furthermore, hackers can also use phishing techniques to access your email accounts or other online services. 

If hackers can gain access to your internal networks, they could steal your data or damage your operations. That’s why your organization must take steps to protect against these attacks.

How To Defend Yourself?

Step-1

To defend against this type of attack, it is important that your company’s employees are aware of these fraudulent emails and do not click on any suspicious links. Also, it’s important to have good anti-spam software to filter out these fraudulent emails before they reach your employees’ inboxes. Malware is malicious software that can infect a computer and cause various problems, such as stealing user personal information or spreading malware to other computers. 

Step-2

To defend against this type of threat, it is important to install good antivirus software on your computer and make regular backups of the data stored on it.

 Additionally, your company’s employees must be on the lookout for suspicious emails or download links. DDoS (Denial of Service) is an attack that aims to prevent access to a website or online service by sending massive requests to that website/service. This attack can harm a company, preventing customers/users from accessing their products/services online. 

Step-3

To defend against this type of threat, it is important to have a good firewall installed and properly configured to block these unwanted requests. 

In addition, it is important to constantly monitor your company’s network traffic to detect this attack early. SQL Injection is a type of attack that aims to exploit vulnerabilities in SQL queries used by the website/service to obtain sensitive data from its database. 

This type of threat can be very dangerous as it allows hackers to get passwords, credit card numbers, DNS servers, DNS hijacking, anonymous redirects, etc., and they can modify them in the existing database and delete them completely.

Step-4

According to OWASP, the best practices to prevent a SQL attack are:

• Queries parameterization
• Using “stored procedures.”
• Escape all user-supplied input
• Limit access privileges

Brute force attacks are the most common and can be easily avoided. They involve using automated programs to try to guess passwords or encryption keys. These programs can test thousands of combinations per second, making it difficult for system administrators to monitor and block all attacks.

Step-5

The best way to protect against brute force attacks is to use strong, unique passwords for all users and applications. Passwords must be at least 8 characters long and include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. System administrator accounts must also have strong passwords.

Another measure you can take to protect against brute-force attacks is to limit the number of login attempts per IP. This means that if a hacker tries to guess passwords using an automated program, he can only make a limited number of attempts before the system’s firewall blocks his IP.

Also Read: What Is Malware, And What Are Its Main Types