An “Attack Vector” is the phrase used in the IT industry to describe the path that a hacker or malware application may take to infiltrate your IT network and compromise your data. Attack vectors take advantage of systemic faults and human defects to allow an attacking entity to access, monitor, ransom, corrupt, or steal sensitive data.
An attack vector allows threat actors to get access to a target. The two main types of vectors are as follows:
Direct attack vectors—the threat actor directly strikes the victim. For instance, phishing or malware.
Indirect attack vectors—the threat actor takes use of flaws in other systems. For example, exploiting a vulnerability in the operating system’s Internet browser.
Common Types of Attack Vectors
- Compromised Access Credentials
The simplest example of access credentials are your typical username and password. These credentials often get lost, stolen, or exposed due to various causes such as phishing and data leaks of third-party sites. Because many users tend to reuse their company password when signing up to personal services, you can find your corporate network becomes a target when a third-party’s user database is compromised, and the username/password data is stolen.
- Phishing
One of the most common attack vectors is phishing. Phishing is a technique used to deceive people into disclosing sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers, credit card information, PINs, and passwords. It is used by threat actors for a variety of purposes, including collecting credentials, initiating ransomware attacks, and stealing financial information.
- Malware
Malware refers to any piece of software that is intentionally designed for malicious purposes. For example, ransomware encrypts files and demands a ransom in exchange for encryption keys, whereas spyware spies on users and communicates this information to the actor.
Malware can infiltrate an individual or an entire network of computers, files, servers, and databases.
- Insider Threats
Insider threats operate as authorised users within the company. An employee may mistakenly divulge sensitive information, such as credentials, to a social engineering actor. There are also malicious threat actors—employees or ex-employees who deliberately abuse their privileges to perform unauthorized activities.
- Vulnerability Exploits
A vulnerability is a defect in software or hardware that threat actors can exploit to launch attacks. There are two categories of vulnerabilities: known vulnerabilities that have been publicly reported and zero-day vulnerabilities that are unknown vectors. Both categories are used by threat actors to conduct attacks, but zero-day vulnerabilities are regarded more profitable since they provide actors more time to attack before anybody becomes aware of their activities.
- SQL Injection
Structured Query Language (SQL) is a computer language that allows for database connectivity. SQL is used to manage sensitive data on several servers that store it. SQL injection is a type of attack vector in which malicious SQL is injected into a server to cause it to reveal information.
- Denial of Service (DoS)
DoS attack is a cyber-attack that attempts to overload, slow down, limit access to, or crash networked systems such as websites, online services, servers, and data centres. DoS attackers flood and disrupt access to a web resource by using synthetically produced traffic. When several devices or systems are used to launch a more powerful and coordinated attack against a specific web service, this is referred to as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). A successful denial-of-service attack occurs when an Internet-based or networked resource becomes essentially unreachable to its intended users due to the volume of traffic it receives.
- Poor System Configuration
Improper configuration of applications, cloud services, and other networked resources means data breaches, data leaks, and malware infection become easier for cyber criminals. Bad practices such as using default access credentials and failing to add additional security measures like multi-factor authentication worsen your organisation’s exposure to malicious hacking.
- Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) Attack
Man-in-the- Middle attacks are the cyber equivalent of eavesdropping in which a malevolent actor places itself between two legitimate participants in order to intercept, influence, and manipulate their conversation, transaction, or data transfer. MITM attacks take place between persons, servers, and client devices with the goal of obtaining sensitive information and/or causing harm to one or both of the legitimate participants. MITM attacks take use of flaws in public WiFi connections, SSL/TLS connections, LANs, HTTPS connections to websites, routers with unchanged default security settings or susceptible firmware, and even your own computer compromised with eavesdropping malware/spyware.
- Brute Force
A brute force attack uses a trial-and-error approach to uncover passwords, encryption keys, login information, and other access credentials. In a brute force attack, the malicious actor tries repeatedly to gain unauthorised access to a system or an account. The method appears to be simple and insane, yet it has a high success rate, and much of the attempts now use automated programs, scripts, and bots. While success depends on the attacker’s tools and determination, it also depends on the strength/weakness of the intended victim’s passwords, data encryption, security/authentication protocols, and other access points.
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