The Dark Side of Cybercrime: 4 Main Threats You Must Avoid

Fatima Naeem
3 min readMay 23, 2024

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Are you a victim of a cyber attack and want to prevent it from happening again? Well, you’ve come to the right place to look for answers!

It’s widely accepted that if cybersecurity is not handled well, it might lead to serious financial damage. A 2022 analysis in the United States showed about 480,000 incidents of cyberattack in a year. That’s why it’s essential to learn about cybersecurity to stay safe from such attacks.

Now, the question might arise what are these threats, and in what ways can you prevent them? Read on and get a quick review of the most harmful cybersecurity threats and ways to keep them in check.

1. Phishing Attacks

Phishing is known to be one of the most manipulative cybersecurity threats. Here, the attackers try to target your usernames, passwords, and credit card details by impersonating someone on your contact list. They usually pretend to be banks and other financial agencies and try to steal your useful data.

Around 30 percent of adults worldwide faced phishing scams in 2022. The attackers’ messages and emails look authentic on the surface, so you need to beware of them. If you’re suspicious of the sender, simply ignore it.

2. Hackers and Predators Intrusion

Remember, it’s not computers that are behind these attacks but people themselves. These hackers and predators are skilled programmers who break into computer systems to steal data and wipe out records. They can even steal your identity and lock you out of your data.

You can avoid such cyberattacks by implementing a strong system, using online security tools, and keeping your software up-to-date.

3. Malware Breaches

Malware means malicious software. As the name indicates, these are those computer programs that are designed to cause damage to a computer system or device. The attackers try to get malware into your computer system through various tricks like asking to click a link or visit a website. Once malware is added, your activities and confidential data are no longer safe. The most common malware include:

The top-notch way to protect against malware is to use up-to-date antivirus. Using firewalls to restrict access to sensitive systems adds another layer of protection against malware. Oh, and don’t forget to double-check before opening shady links and emails.

4. Man in the Middle (MITM) Attacks

Generally speaking, when you access a system on the internet, you assume that you are directly communicating with a target system. In MITM attacks, the attackers place themselves between you and the system. Once they succeed, they get access to any data that’s exchanged, whether it’s in the form of audio, video, or text. This mostly happens when you try to connect to a public Wi-Fi lacking security.

These types of attacks are hard to detect, so you can use paid and open-source digital tools to scan the network of the target system.

Ending Note

In this digital age, cyber security threats keep rising, and it’s up to you to study them and set up your defenses against such phishing and malware attacks. Now that you’re aware of the most harmful cybersecurity threats, we hope that you can protect yourself from them.

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