Page 61 - Cyber Warnings

Threats and Enemies: The 10 Most Dangerous Threats to Your

Network and How to Combat Them

By Summer ParkerPerry, Product Evangelist, ManageEngine

With data breaches and security threats on the rise, protecting your network has become
virtually impossible. In 2016 alone, a recorded 1,093 data breaches occurred (according to the
Identity Theft Resource Center and CyberScout). With this peak in data breaches, it’s more
critical than ever to make sure your system is protected.

It’s important to stay educated on the latest and most dangerous threats to your network to
make sure you have the right tools to keep your system secure. The following list details the
most commonly used attacks and threats to your network.

Threat 1: SQL Injection Attack

• An SQL injection attack, commonly known as an attack vector for websites, uses malicious
SQL statements to control a web application’s database server. These types of attacks are
dangerous because they allow attackers to tamper with (and even destroy) data, spoof
identities, access administrator rights, and alter transactions and balances.

• WordPress, unfortunately, fell victim to an SQL injection attack that affected their
WP_Query, which is used to access variables, checks and functions coded into WordPress’
core. Though the issue did not affect the core, it did introduce further vulnerabilities.
(January, 2017)

Threat 2: DDoS Attack

• A DDoS attack floods a machine or network with endless requests, overloading the system.
This type of attack is intended to disrupt the host’s services and prevent requests from being
fulfilled.

Some DDoS attacks can result in backscatter, which restricts the victim’s machine from
being able to distinguish between legitimate and spoofed packets.

• In 2016, DNS provider Dyn Inc. fell prey to a DDoS attack that took down their service for
nearly 24 hours, impacting popular services that rely on Dyn, including Netflix, Twitter,
Airbnb and PayPal.

Combat: Shield Your Network from DDoS and SQL Injection Attacks

To protect networks from SQL injection attacks, DDoS attacks, phishing attacks and more, IT
teams need to pinpoint breach attempts, insider threats, and policy violations with no manual
61 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – May 2017 Edition
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