15 types of cyber attack

Following recent attacks targeting rental firms Palfinger and Adapteo , as well as others in the wider construction sector, the industry is rallying to fight against the threat of cyber crime.

Effective measures are being put in place as the issue becomes more prevalent but it remains a sophisticated issue with varying methods in effect to cause problems for an organisation.

There are a vast amount of ways a perpetrator can carry out a cyber attack. Credit: Reuters

Using information from data security platform Lepide, we look a the different types of threat that are affecting the sector…

Malware
Applications, including ransomware, that perform malicious tasks from spying to obtaining valuable data or causing disruption.

Phishing
Designed to trick a victim into handing over information, such as passwords, credit card details or intellectual property.

Man-in-the-middle attack (MITM)
The attacker intercepts the communication between two parties to spy on victims or steal information.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack
An attacker uses multiple devices to flood a target server with traffic to disrupt or bring down the target.

SQL injection
SQL databases uses SQL statements to query data typically executed via a HTML form on a webpage. If permissions are not set correctly, the HTML form can be exploited.

Zero-day exploit
Cyber-criminals exploit an existing vulnerability in software applications and operating systems, before a fix becomes available.

DNS tunnelling
DNS tunnelling provides attackers with persistent access to a given target.

Business Email Compromise (BEC)
The attacker targets individuals, perhaps those with the ability to authorise financial transactions.

Cryptojacking
Criminals compromise a user’s computer or device and use it to mine cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

Drive-by attack
A victim visits a website which in turn infects their device with malware.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks
Similar to SQL injection attacks, these infect other users who visit the site or redirect the user to a malicious website.

Palfinger attack highlights escalation in cyber crimes What lessons does the Palfinger case have for the wider construction equipment industry?

Password attack
An attacker cracks a user’s password, sometimes using phishing.

Eavesdropping attack
Attackers look for unsecured network communications to intercept and access data being sent across the network.

AI-powered attacks
AI-powered software can learn what kinds of approaches work best and adapt attack methods.

IoT-based attacks
Hackers may seek to compromise IoT devices in order to launch large-scale DDoS attacks.

[Source: Lepide]