Types and Effects of Cyber Threats

Introduction

According to the study cyber threat refers to malicious behaviors that tend to be offensive and it usually applies in organizations, nation, groups, and society. They are actions that one does in a cyber-software and interfere with the data stored in a device. In the contemporary world, cyber threats have become a challenge to various companies. These threats undermine Cybersecurity within the organization. In many cases, firms design processes and controls in a way they can control data, networks, and systems from getting exposed to cyber-attacks (Laipson, 2017). According to the study, cyber threats have led to significant effects on technology. Thus, this paper focuses on the various types of cyber threats and how cyber threats affects the world of technology. 

Research Questions

1. What are the types of cyber threats? The question helps in finding out the various forms of cyber risks found within the society and organization.
2. What are the effects of cyber threats? The question assists in showing how cyber risks affects various organizations and society. 

Purpose Statement

This study aims to find out the various types and impacts of cyber threats. 

The study shows that one type of cyber threat is unpatched software (Gharibi & Shaabi, 2012). The research indicates that Browser-adds programs are some of the examples of exploited and unpatched software (Gharibi & Shaabi, 2012). Examples of the browser-adds include programs that ensure internet surfing and adobe reader. Even though people have used these programs for many years, the study shows that no organization has designed a perfect patched software (Samtani et al., 2017). Research indicates that there exist numerous mistakes and errors in the auditing. A company can avoid this form of cyber threat by ensuring that patching is perfect. However, if an organization is not able to provide that the patching is automatically complete, as a result, it will exploit the products around it. Thus, it is valid to note that in a situation where a company ensures that patching is perfect, there are lower possibilities of their programs getting exposed to threats. 

The study shows that social media threat is another form of cyber risk (Willard,). Forms of social media include WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The study indicates that these types of threats occur when there is a fight between two individuals who need aims at offending each other (Willard, 2007). This risks usually happens when one sends a request. As a result, the other partner would access the social media account and be able to change the password (Laipson, 2017). After obtaining the account, the hacker is likely to post who he or she wants to offend the owner of the specific social media account. The study indicates that a suitable way to measure this type of risk is that the real account owners should create strong passwords and make them confidential Gharibi & Shaabi, 2012 (). The study indicates that specializes in cybersecurity advise social media users to create passwords by mixing both capital and small letters and a number, to ensure that they have an active password since a hacker would not be able to guess such details. 

The advanced persistent threat is the third cyber risk. The study shows that this type of threat has made various companies suffer (Gharibi & Shaabi, 2012). The research indicates that this form of risk steals intellectual property from an individual; it achieves this from the application of socially engineered Trojans and attacks based on phishing. Crawford (2013) indicates that the attackers always send phishing ads referred to as spear phishing. The attackers always send these ads to email addresses belonging to many individuals. The study connotes that the email usually contains an attachment of Trojan which helps in tricking one of the recipients. This strategy enables the hijackers to be able to destroy a company with a short period. The study indicates that prevention and detecting this form of risk is always a challenge for various companies. Nevertheless, to overcome this type of risk, a company will need to design a legitimate pattern of network traffic, which will allow them to recognize the flow of threats. 

What is more, the study indicates that the threats mentioned above have various effects (Emerson, 2016). One of the impacts is that cyber threats can lead to financial loss. For example, there are hacking instances that may lead to hacking of the bank accounts of individuals. As a result, it will result in a loss of money. Another effect is that cyber threats compromise confidentiality. An individual or a company can lose information or confidential details which may lead to the loss of significant data of an organization (Kerner, 2017). Additionally, cyber threats can lead to the loss of business contracts. Hacking of the system of an organization can lead to the loss of company details, which may include the business contracts of the company (Tounsi & Rais, 2018). As a result, a firm will lose profits, sales, and customers since many will tend to avoid putting money in such companies. 

Conclusion

The purpose of the paper was to indicate the various types of cyber threats and their impacts on the society and organization. The above premises explains three types of cyber risks which include, unpatched software threats, social media threats, and advanced persistent threat. Additionally, people indicate the various impacts of cyber threats. For instance, it may lead to a loss of confidentiality. 

References

Crawford, D. (2013). Emerging Cyber Threats Ring In The New Year. Communications Of The ACM, 56(1), 20.

Emerson, R. G. (2016). Limits to a cyber-threat. Contemporary Politics, 22(2), 178-196. 

Gharibi, W., & Shaabi, M. (2012). Cyber threats on social networking websites. arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.2420.

Kerner, S. M. (2017). 18 Cyber-Security Trends Organizations Need to Brace for in 2018. Eweek, 1-4.

Laipson, E. (2017). How Will Emerging Cyber Threats Change the Way, We Think About Conflict?. World Politics Review (Selective Content), 1-3.

Samtani, S., Chinn, R., Chen, H., & Nunamaker, J. F. (2017). Exploring Emerging Hacker Assets and Key Hackers for Proactive Cyber Threat Intelligence. Journal Of Management Information Systems, 34(4), 1023-1053. 

Tounsi, W., & Rais, H. (2018). A survey on technical threat intelligence in the age Of sophisticated cyber-attacks. Computers & Security, 72212-233. 

Willard, N. E. (2007). Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the challenge of online social aggression, threats, and distress. Research Press.