Most of us have some day to day activity happening on the Internet. Due to the pandemic induced work from home, and class from home, we cannot help but bank on the Internet for everything.
Some of you might think that you have never faced any data theft or cyber-attacks on your system and hence you are safe. But, we are sorry to burst your bubble. Recent statistics prove with evidence that there has been a 300% rise in cyber attacks.
Hackers are like hawks in the cyber network whom we cannot see. They sit quietly, in ambush, and devise ways to snoop in and rupture your work or steal confidential data to compromise your business.
They can attack not just on computers but any IoT devices, such as softwares, drivers, tablets, wireless sensors, cameras, etc. They successfully infiltrated the impenetrable security and data systems of corporations, tarnishing their reputation.
It is time, we all open our eyes to such malpractices, discuss these cyberattacks and the lessons we learn from them.
American Medical Collection Agency – May 2019 – 25 million compromised records
The first major cyberattack we will talk about is the one that happened in the mid-2019 in American Medical Collection Agency. A massive breach of 25 million patient information was declared by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Several clients belonging to medicine and pathology had to bear the brunt of compromised patient records, addresses, phone numbers, diseases, etc. It taught the world that these attacks can weaken even the toughest in the world.
This should encourage readers to redouble their security checks while doing online work to prevent unforeseen damages.
Citrix Systems Inc. – March 2019
In early 2019 Citrix, a multinational software company was hacked. The data breach did not state any record on the number of compromised consumer data, but internal sources revealed that the loss is substantial.
We know that readers wonder, how a renowned software company such as Citrix that provides services to 400K companies was under the knives of deadly hackers. Investigators later found out how the company was hacked.
The hacker used a technique called password spray to obtain access to the records. This method scans the systems and shortlists the ones that have weak passwords given. It is easy for a hacker to infiltrate a system with a weak password.
This was the scenario with Citrix. The hacker who gained admittance continued to access the system, intermittently, for six months. Later FBI and forensic experts roped in to end this trouble.
The world and its software employees understood that it is not enough to simply hide your password. Users must also set a strong password to prevent cyberattacks.
Following this case, most MNCs urged employees to build a strong password and set several categories making it hard for hackers to ascertain which password is weak. Quite a mindful lesson.
Facebook – April to May 2019 – 419 to 540 million compromised records
The most popular social networking site cannot be an easy target for hackers. At least, that was what users and cybersecurity experts thought until April and May 2019.
During this tenure, Facebook was hacked by scandalous hackers who disclosed close to half a billion records consisting of personal data for political manipulation.
More than half a billion of hacked Facebook records were available on Amazon’s cloud computing servers as confirmed by the Facebook CEO himself. Many people lost trust in Facebook and were forced to change sim cards and other private details as those were out on the Internet.
This taught people that they have no role to play when a cybersystem is hacked, but they should be judicial in the information they share with a social media platform. Soon after this incident, Facebook users saw an option through which they can restrict sharing certain information with the social media platform.
General Lessons From Cyberattacks
We all shudder at the prospect of compromising our business details due to cyberattacks. Sometimes, these cyber terrorists seek ransom for restoring the damages. The possibilities of experiencing an unfortunate event of cyberattack is not a hen growing teeth matter anymore.
We all have to prepare for a cyberattack if we own a company or work on the Internet. What is a better way to prepare ourselves than the lessons we learn from previous cyber attacks?
Readers should know these few things to tackle themselves out of a similar predicament in future.
Threats Can Be Old
Not all threats are novel and need a national alert. People need to recognize that most cyber threats are a repetition of a previous one.
To prevent such recurring occurrence of cyberattacks, people can install firewalls and security patches regularly. Windows 10, itself has several security and firmware patches. It also has a preloaded windows defender firewall that provides internet protection.
Backing Up Data
In an unfortunate event of cyberattack by malicious hackers, the victim can end up crashing the system and BIOS. In such cases, they need to format the system and restore the files.
Having a data backup or savepoint is crucial. After a new operating system is restored, users can restore their data from the savepoint.
A cloud backup is the most beneficial form of backup these days. The files in Cloud, sync automatically. People can also access them from any device, anywhere.
Report Incident and Take Action
Cyberattacks are no less than any other crime. If you are a victim of hacking or cyberattacks, you need to take proper action against it. Most people are at their wits’ end and become puzzled in a period of crisis.
The victim should immediately get in touch with the cyber cell of police and cybersecurity team to explain the crisis. Lawyers and police would then take up the case and investigate the issue.
