Last updated on April 8th, 2024 at 06:23 am
Like a sniper, the biggest and the most lethal security threats are the ones that the companies never see coming. Keeping in consideration the frequency of cyberattacks, the probability of it happening is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’. With the proliferation of technology and digitization, hackers are starting to automate their attacks which enables them to target hundreds, if not thousands of small and medium businesses simultaneously. The cybersecurity landscape is constantly changing and evolving and thus, it poses a great challenge for software security testing companies. Threat actors are notoriously dynamic, they are constantly upgrading their tactics and strategies to penetrate even the most upgraded and secure firewalls.
There are three primary cyber-attack forms that wreak havoc on the system security of companies and necessities the employment of software security testing companies in order to avoid massive losses and potential loss of reputation. They include;
Phishing Attacks
One of the most damaging and widespread threats encountered by companies comes in the form of malicious emails, websites, or text to manipulate or trick the victim into giving away sensitive data. This is a kind of social engineering attack that happens when the hacker pretends to be a trusted contact or accomplice and entices the victim to click a fraudulent link or download a malevolent file. Almost 90 percent of the security breaches that companies encounter are because of phishing attacks, and with automated techniques and multiple digital platforms at their disposal, phishing attacks have grown 65 percent since last year. As per research, these kinds of security attacks and breaches cost up to $12 billion in company losses.
IoT Based Attacks
As per Gartner, almost 20 percent of organizations across the globe have encountered at least one IoT attack within the past three years. Given that by the year 2025, the number of connected devices is expected to rise to 75 billion, the companies will be more prone to the imminent threat of system breaches and cyberattacks, and the level of risk will rise fivefold from today. In simpler terms, an IoT security testing attack is when a threat actor uses the victims’ multiple connected devices (for instance, wifi-enabled devices) to sneak malware into the system. IoT devices are generally easier to compromise mainly because they are usually disregarded when it comes to security patch applications.
Ransomware
One of the most common and lucrative forms of cyber-attacks, thousands of companies and small businesses tend to fall victim to ransomware. Hackers generally get access to the company’s data through malicious means and encrypt the data so it is inaccessible or unusable for the company itself. The company is then forced to pay a certain amount of money to the threat actors in order to unlock the data, and this usually leaves them in a conundrum; to pay the ransom or to potentially lose large sums of money owing to the data loss. Small businesses that tend to have weak firewalls are the most vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.
