What is a Security Threat?
Any malicious code which seeks to obtain data unlawfully or corrupt systems is a security threat. Such threats can cause considerable disruption not just to the systems themselves but to entire organisations. Below are three examples of common threats.
Formjacking
As of 2019, formjacking is considered a relatively new security threat.
The concept of formjacking is similar to compromising a payment card reader: an attacker, having inserted some additional equipment into the reader, can then gather credit card details if the reader is used (called 'credit card skimming').
Ransomware
Though ransomware declined year-on-year in 2018 in overall scale, it remains a significant threat. 2017 was the highest year ever, so whilst 2018 saw a reduction, there was still more ransomware in 2018 than 2016.
Ransomware is a form of malware that interferes with data on a device, or the device itself.
Targeted Attacks
Automated cyber attacks have been popular for some years. Attackers have built up automation tools, and then found exploitable vulnerabilities. By rapidly attacking many potentially vulnerable systems, attackers have usually managed to find some that they can compromise.
