Common Types of Network Security Attacks and How to Prevent Them in Your Enterprise

News outlets confirm what we don’t want to know. A single cyberattack can bring a sprawling corporate network to a complete standstill. Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, explains his concern. “My fear is (that) cyber is moving to more and more sophistication. It’s moving from simply exfiltrating information to potentially extraordinarily destructive actions. And we need to up our game.”

Adding to the risks of today’s networks is the ever-growing network attack surface which provides entry to an ample supply of attack vectors. The migration to Cloud, the widespread usage of IoT, the popularity of remote work environments, and the use of personal devices for business operations, also known as BYOD (bring your own device) make it difficult to control and protect our enmeshed networks. 

The bright side of all this is that network security technologies are also evolving to meet common network attacks head-on. 

Let’s lay out some of the most common types of attacks in network security seen today, and how we respond to them to keep our networks safe. Then, we’ll look ahead and see some promising technologies that are emerging in the cyber playing field.

Common Types of Network Security Attacks

Top Network Security Threats

Ransomware

Ransomware operates with the following concept: Pay your ransom or lose your data. Often, attackers follow up with a second extortion by threatening to sell stolen data if a second installment is not paid.

If you follow cyber news, then you’ve read about recent high-profile ransomware attacks. 

  • The Colonial Pipeline attack is a notorious example of a huge corporation brought to a halt, forced to pay almost $5 million in ransom, and severely crippling the US fuel supply chain. 
  • Just a couple of months ago, Nvidia, the world’s largest semiconductor chip company was compromised by a ransomware attack. In the Nvidia case, the attackers had leaked some employee credentials and corporate data.
  • United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) 111 emergency services were hit by a ransomware attack that hit the systems of British managed service provider, Advanced. The attack triggered a major outage and disrupted many customers.

Ransomware hits the victim abruptly and off guard, but it is actually the final step of a much longer attack process. Ransomware is only deployed after an attacker breaches the victim’s network and gains a foothold in its systems. Before the ransomware attack, the attacker uses a method like phishing, social engineering, infected malicious software apps, infected external storage devices, or compromised websites to enter the network undetected. Once a strong position is established in the network, they attack the accessible endpoints with ransomware.

How To Protect Yourself From Ransomware

Ransomware is always preempted by an undetected system breach. Logic dictates that the strongest defense against these types of network attacks is preventing the initial entry. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to ransomware prevention, a strong defense against this attack is to prevent that initial breach. 

Preventing ransomware is a complex task and an effective strategy usually combines several mitigation techniques. Network segmentation, continuous system backups, hard drive encryption, and a strong incident response plan will curtail the damage inflicted on a compromised system. 

Network segmentation

Network segmentation is the practice of separating each department of your IT infrastructure. This is usually accomplished by firewall rules and essentially prevents an attacker from lateral movement across the entire network.  

Backups

System backups don’t protect the data on a compromised system. Instead, they provide an unscathed version of the breached or stolen data. As cyberattacks become part of the normal business landscape, and corporations have learned the hard way that in 2022 even the most resilient networks should still “assume breach”, a major step towards resilience is making data replaceable and accessible. This concept of devaluing data by backing it up, or using easily interchangeable containers in cloud development, is known as making data “ephemeral”.

Start Getting Value With
Centraleyes for Free

See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days

Do you want to learn how Centraleyes helps with Network Security?

 Misconfigurations and Vulnerabilities

A vulnerability is a security gap an attacker can exploit to access an application or network environment. Unpatched software versions and outdated firmware with known zero days would be called a vulnerability. 

A misconfiguration is an erroneous setting configured in a system that exposes a security gap. Misconfigurations usually do not require a patch, as a vulnerability would. To fix a misconfiguration, you simply need to change the problematic setting.  According to Gartner, misconfigurations cause 95% of all firewall breaches. A misconfigured firewall has incorrect specifications because of error, or lack of research. Misconfigurations usually imply that the settings and security controls are not up to par with the industry security standards.

How To Protect Yourself

Patch management is a great first step to update old software versions and vulnerable applications.  Automated vulnerability scanners can detect open security gaps, making risk remediation more efficient. 

Cyber defense education for your technical staff is also a great way to fortify your network and minimize the chance of a misconfiguration laying around too long undetected.

 Credential Stuffing

Credential stuffing is a type of cyberattack where threat actors take usernames and passwords that they’ve obtained, and use them to try and gain entry to a victim’s account. The credentials are usually acquired from leaked data published on a leak site or purchased from the dark web.  

Unfortunately, credential stuffing is becoming increasingly common. Ordering a set of valid user credentials is just about as simple as making an online purchase. Just last month, the FBI released a PIN (Private Industry Notification) on their Internet Crime Complaint Center. They reported a rise in credential stuffing attacks and warned internet domain administrators to implement defenses.

The success of credential stuffing is dependent on password reuse by the victim. A Google survey uncovered that the majority of people reuse passwords on multiple accounts. When an employee reuses passwords across a host of services, a hacker can find leaked credentials online, and command a botnet to log into services such as Microsoft 365, AWS, or Google. As soon as they find a credential set that works, they’re in. 

How To Protect Yourself

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

With multi-factor authentication, the attacker must have access to the phone number associated with the account to gain entry. This severely restricts the ability of an attacker to complete a credential stuffing attack even if they log in with valid credentials.

MFA is an important layer of security that should indeed be implemented, but it is not foolproof. The use of an authenticator app, security key, or biometrics is a stronger and more effective method. 

Password Management

Limiting password reuse and implementing security controls that require strong passwords for each account will nip a credential stuffing attack right in the bud. 

 Social Engineering

Social engineering is the exploitation of a victim that causes them to release sensitive data.  Most commonly, social engineering attacks are conducted through email phishing where the victim is deceived into downloading a malicious file or releasing their credentials. Social engineering is a popular first step in a complex cyberattack. 

The irony of social engineering is that victimized employees usually don’t realize even after the fact that they have just bit the attacker’s bait and compromised the security of their organization.

How To Protect Yourself

Strong cybersecurity awareness education remains the most powerful defense tactic against social engineering attacks. Above all, training helps an organization develop a security-first culture in the company.  An organization with a strong security culture is an organization with greater resilience to social engineering and other attacks.      

Looking Ahead

SASE, secure access service edge (pronounced “sassy”), an emerging concept coined by Gartner, defines how security, networking, and business value requirements should combine into a single technology architecture. SASE is becoming an effective way to address the shifting (or disappearing) network perimeter by merging networking, security, and business value into one. With the migration to the cloud, an increase in remote workplaces, Saas solutions, and the transfer of data between cloud services, offices, and personal devices,  the need for an innovative approach to network security is necessary.

Gartner predicts, “By 2025, at least 60% of enterprises will have explicit strategies and timelines for SASE adoption encompassing user, branch, and edge access, up from about 10% in 2020.”

According to Gartner, “SASE capabilities are delivered as a service based upon the identity of the entity, real-time context, enterprise security/compliance policies, and continuous assessment of risk/trust throughout the sessions. Identities of entities can be associated with people, groups of people (branch offices), devices, applications, services, IoT systems or edge computing locations.”

Bottom Line 

Improving your cyber maturity isn’t just logical- it’s vital to business survival. Implementing security controls, maintaining up-to-date backups, regularly updating software, training your employees, and fortifying your network proactively makes all the difference in today’s tough threat landscape.

For more information about keeping your organization secure with the latest standards and cybersecurity regulations, reach out to us at Centraleyes.

Start Getting Value With
Centraleyes for Free

See for yourself how the Centraleyes platform exceeds anything an old GRC
system does and eliminates the need for manual processes and spreadsheets
to give you immediate value and run a full risk assessment in less than 30 days

Do you want to learn how Centraleyes helps with Network Security?
Skip to content