It seems like every day we’re being told of yet another data breach. As a business owner in today’s connected world, it’s important to be educated about the risks involved. There are plenty of trade websites, blogs and newsletters where you can learn about today’s threats. Like any industry IT professionals have a language they use when discussing these very real issues.
If you’re new to IT, or just looking for information, here are six common hacking terms you should know when conversing with your IT security team.
- Denial Of Service Attack (DoS): DoS attacks are used to lock resources by flooding a network or website with rapid requests that can’t be serviced. This effectively shuts down the resource by crashing the network or website.
- Dictionary Attack: A sophisticated version of the brute force password attack. Hackers try literally thousands, or even millions of randomly generated passwords in order to break through password security.
- Logic Bomb: A logic bomb is “set off” or triggered by a specific event or sequence of events. Hacked systems are loaded with software that is awaiting a specific event, date, or series of actions to begin the attack.
- Malware: Malicious software or malware, is a program that is designed to disrupt a computer or network with malicious intent.
- Phishing: This is the most common type of attack. Often sent from a friend’s email address which was attacked by a virus that hijacked their address book.
- Zero-day Attack: A common term, a zero-day attack uses a flaw in an app or OS to gain access or control a system’s resources. Zero-day is the day the first attack was identified.
There are new IT threats coming online every day. Regardless of your industry, it’s important to stay on top of IT trends, risks and vulnerabilities to reduce your risk of attack. Want to learn more? Contact us today to learn how to keep your data protected.
