Cyberattacks

A cyberattack refers to all the steps, resources, and actions used by an attacker to achieve their goal. In order to carry out their attack, an attacker takes advantage of vectors attack to exploit vulnerabilities.

 

1  1-   Attack vectors

Three vectors (paths, entry points) can be used or even combined to conduct an attack.

 

Human

People are the first vectors of attack. By having use of so-called "social engineering" techniques, Attackers can, for example, use phishing to trick their target (see "Major types of attacks" below). Another way to do this is to leave USB sticks infected with malicious code lying around, betting on negligent employees picking them up and connecting them to the organization's network.

 

Computer science

There are other attack vectors such as computer techniques and malicious code that can harm a computer system.

 

Physics

Breaking into a room (e.g. a server room or office), cutting cables, stealing a server (etc.) are other physical means of accessing or damaging an information system.

 

2  2-   Vulnerabilities

Cyberattacks exploit vulnerabilities, i.e. one or more flaws identified in a system.

In terms of cybersecurity, the challenge is to identify and correct them.

These vulnerabilities can be of different natures:

 

-         A vulnerability in equipment or software code, present through negligence or introduced by design unintentionally. These vulnerabilities can be corrected by implementing a security patch.

-         Vulnerabilities related to the lack of awareness among users, the lack of consideration of cyber risk.

 

3  3- Three examples of cyberattacks

 

Ransomware

Cyberattacks based on the use of malware that bundles all malicious computer codes and programs, which can be dangerous for information systems. The most common is ransomware, a contraction of the words "ransom" and "software". It is a cyberattack consisting of installing a malicious program, if possible on as much as possible of the victim's information system, in the purpose of obtaining a ransom payment from the latter. To Ransomware will prevent users from accessing their data (photos, customer file, etc.)

 

DDOS

Distributed denial of service attacks aim to make one or more services unavailable. To do this, too many queries can be referred to the said service (website, names, etc.), making it inaccessible to other users.

This is called a distributed denial of service (destributed denial of service or DDoS) when the attack is based on a network of "zombie" machines previously manipulated without the knowledge of their owner. These networks can be made up of servers, computers or objects connected to the internet such as video surveillance cameras. When they are composed of compromised machines, they are called "botnets".

APT

Advance Persistent Threat (Advance Persistent Threat, or APT) are more sophisticated attacks that are within the reach of malicious actors with the skills and/or resources to penetrate deep into the a network. These attacks are mainly carried out for economic, industrial or scientific espionage purposes.