As the influence of technology increases, the world is rapidly moving towards digitization. It’s not only is it prevalent in our daily lives but also within businesses. However, while digitization has made our lives easier and allowed businesses to achieve more than ever, everything has its drawbacks. The rise in cybercrime was inevitable, with an unimaginable amount of valuable information stored digitally. But what’s more concerning is that cybercriminals are now more capable of attacking individuals and even large-scale corporations as technology advances. In addition, events such as the recent pandemic have made companies and people more vulnerable to cyberattacks as digitization increased. In such a situation, the best way to avoid cyberattacks is by being aware of the most common techniques used by cybercriminals. To help you with this, here are five cyber crimes that are most likely to occur in 2022.

Identity theft

Identity theft has been the go-to method for scammers to trick individuals into giving out sensitive information and money. However, it has become incredibly easy to impersonate someone in recent years, as personal information can be accessed through social media. With a simple search on the internet, cybercriminals can find enough information about a person to impersonate them without any issues. Consequently, identity theft is becoming a rising concern for companies and individuals alike. However, it can be minimized by making it more challenging for cybercriminals to access the personal information needed to steal an identity. Therefore, it’s best to keep your information on the internet minimal or train your workers to do so if you run a business.

Concerned individuals may also consider identity theft protection services with reviews based on the findings of experts who have actually bought and tested each service. By subscribing to such services, individuals can enhance their overall security posture and reduce the risk of identity theft.

It’s equally important to use smarter usernames that are harder to guess and find with a simple search. Doing so will make it challenging for cybercriminals to reach your social media accounts and other contacts to impersonate you. However, it can be hard to come up with a purely random username. So, it’s best to use a random username generator to generate a safe username.

Social engineering attacks

Social engineering is an umbrella term that encompasses cyberattacks conducted by psychological manipulation. The most common social engineering attacks are baiting, scareware, and phishing. However, phishing is by far the most popular of cyberattacks. It involves creating and sending emails and text messages that pretend to be from genuine sources. Company employees and simple individuals easily fall into the trap, as the emails or texts are made with every detail an authentic source would add. As a result, countless victims lose their money and personal information, while companies often go bankrupt due to phishing. As many as 3.4 billion phishing emails will be sent daily across the world in 2022.

However, with some security precautions, social engineering attacks can be avoided. One of the most effective precautions is to be cautious of every email or text you receive, as recklessness can trick you into a social engineering scam. Company employees must also be trained to avoid phishing emails and messages. You can also use a secure email service that automatically filters dangerous emails. 

Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware cyber criminals use to infect the victim’s computer and encrypt critical data, making it unusable until a certain amount of money is paid. This type of cyberattack is typically used to target companies, as they have a significant number of financial resources and valuable data. Unfortunately, most companies that go under a ransomware attack cannot recover from it, as they lose data and financial resources.

Taking security precautions is essential to avoid the devastating consequences of a ransomware attack and save your business from shutting down. As ransomware is malware, anti-malware software can be quite helpful in blocking it from your company’s networks. Moreover, firewalls and operating systems must also be updated to reduce security concerns. Training employees to avoid opening suspicious links, email attachments and using random USBs is equally important, as cybercriminals often use them to spread malware.

DDoS attacks

Cybercriminals use distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) to halt a company’s operations, leading to the loss of money. To do so, cybercriminals put excessive load on the target company’s servers with traffic that exceeds the server’s resources, causing them to stop working. As powerful computers become more accessible than ever, DDoS attacks are rising. In 2022, cybercriminals can conduct several DDoS attacks more effectively at a cheaper rate. Even worse, artificially intelligent software is also used to run DDoS attacks automatically.

Considering the increased frequency of DDoS attacks and their efficiency, it’s safe to conclude that cybercriminals won’t stop using them any time soon. But you can prepare your company by using anti-DDoS security solutions. Doing so can protect your servers against large traffic volumes, as the security software will detect and block them. 

IoT hacks

The internet of things (IoT) consists of devices that can connect to the internet. For instance, smartphones, smartwatches, Wi-Fi-enabled vehicles, and smart assistants are all IoT devices. While these devices can be quite convenient and useful, they can also be a security concern. After all, everything that cybercriminals can exploit stores and exchanges data. As a result, IoT hacking and cyberattacks are rising as the popularity of IoT devices grows. Cybercriminals also pay special attention to IoT devices such as smartwatches and assistants, as manufacturers and users often overlook their security.

By hacking an IoT device, a cybercriminal can gain access to your private network of IoT devices and hack other items that contain more valuable information. In addition, malware such as a worm can copy itself from computer to computer, spreading itself within a network. However, you can limit IoT attacks by avoiding using vulnerable and outdated IoT devices. You can also reduce the number of IoT devices you use to prevent cyberattacks.

Conclusion

Technology has provided us with countless benefits. Companies now operate more efficiently and accurately, while people’s lives are much more manageable. However, despite digitization leading to more cybercrime, avoiding technology is not the solution to remain safe. Instead, it’s better to keep yourself aware and prepared for the threats you might face. 

Written by: Digital Hill