Seven hacking trends you should know about

Internet security should be of paramount importance to all businesses, regardless of status and geographical location. While the online marketplace offers a huge number of benefits to companies from all different sectors, it also presents a significant risk when it comes to security.

Keeping on top of the latest attack trends can be tricky, especially as they are constantly growing in scale and complexity.

For businesses, this means that keeping information stored securely on devices and ensuring files, both large and small, are sent in a protected manner is essential.

This should encourage you to invest in a sophisticated email security system, quality virus protection software and a programme that allows for the [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]safe sending of large files, such as Mimecast File Send.[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]safe sending of large files, such as Mimecast File Send.[/tp]

The latter is especially important, as many employees try to use alternative sites to bypass email restrictions on file size. If a malicious website is used to do this, the security of a business can be seriously jeopardised.

As discovered in the Akamai State of the Internet report, here are seven major hacking trends that you should know about in order to keep on top of the latest security threats.

Attack traffic from 194 countries and regions

During the first quarter of 2014, Akamai discovered 194 unique countries and regions that were responsible for some form of attack traffic.

Topping the list was China, with a staggering 41 per cent of attack traffic. The next country on the list was the United States with 11 per cent, followed by Indonesia with 6.8 per cent.

Europe has 16 per cent of attack traffic

The 63 per cent of attacks from the Asia-Pacific region was almost four times more than the 16 per cent seen in Europe.

While Europe doesn’t present as much of a threat as other nations when it comes to attackers, it doesn’t mean you are less susceptible to a hack if you live on the continent.

Microsoft DS is most attacked port

Microsoft DS continues to be the most attacked port, falling victim to 14 per cent of the attack traffic. In second place is Universal Plug and Play with 12 per cent, while Telnet follows with 8.7 per cent.

However, Microsoft DS did see a reduction in traffic by almost 50 per cent when compared to figures from the previous quarter.

Slight decline in DDoS attacks

According to the [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]Akamai study[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]Akamai study[/tp], it experienced fewer customer reports of DDoS attacks in Q1 2014, with a total of 283 made during this time.

Although this marks a 20 per cent decline on the previous quarter, it is still 27 per cent higher than the figures from the same quarter in 2013.

EMEA has 20% of DDoS attacks

Europe, the Middle East and Africa witnessed 20 per cent of DDoS attacks in the first three months of this year. This is in comparison to the 31 per cent experienced in the Asia-Pacific region and 49 per cent in the Americas.

However, the EMEA witnessed a 50 per cent rise in attacks when compared to the previous quarter, which is a worrying trend. According to the report, many of these were against retail outlets in the United Kingdom.

Enterprise is the most at risk sector

The report revealed that 28 per cent of the global attacks were centred around the enterprise sector, with commerce not far behind on 27 per cent. The public sector accounted for 20 per cent of [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]DDoS attacks.[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]DDoS attacks.[/tp]

Overall, business services and financial services are the two types of sectors that appear to be most at risk.

WordPress is vulnerable

 

[tp lang=”en” only=”y”]WordPress XML-RPC pingback[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]WordPress XML-RPC pingback[/tp] exploits were part of a number of DDoS attacks in the earlier part of 2014. This vulnerability allows the hacker to use Layer 7 attacks.

If you use a WordPress site for your business webpage, it could therefore be susceptible to hacks.

Keeping up to date with the latest hacking trends and taking measures to protect your company against the risks is an essential part of modern day business, no matter what market sector you operate in.