As the internet evolves and computer networks become bigger and bigger, network security has become one of the most important factors for companies to consider. Big enterprises like Microsoft are designing and building software products that need to be protected against foreign attacks.

By increasing network security, you decrease the chance of privacy spoofing, identity or information theft and so on. Piracy is a big concern to enterprises that are victims of its effects.

Types of Network Security Attacks(Threads)

Unstructured – attacks made by unskilled hackers. Individuals behind these attacks use hacking tools available on the Internet and are often not aware of the environment they are attacking. These threats should not be neglected because they can expose precious information to malicious users.

Structured – attacks made by individuals who possess advanced computing skills. Such hackers are experts in exploiting system vulnerabilities. By gaining enough information about a company’s network, these individuals can create custom hacking tools to breach network security

Social engineering – it is another type of network attack. Malicious users take advantage of human’s credibility and often gain important information directly from their victims. They often call or send fraudulent emails to their victims pretending to be some other person entirely.Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication”. Entire sites are known to be duplicated by hackers in an attempt to steal precious information from users.

Eavesdropping – is one of the common types of attacks. A malicious user can gain critical information from “listening” to network traffic because most communications are sent unencrypted. The traffic can be analyzed using sniffing tools to read information as it is sent into the network.

Dos and DDoS attacks (Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service attacks – These attacks take advantage of network traffic to create abnormal behavior to network services or applications. Servers are often targeted and flooded with data until they become unreachable. Distributed denial of service attacks are more dangerous because attacks are made from multiple sources.

Password attacks – These attacks are based on cracking user or equipment passwords. They are one of the most feared network attacks because once a user is compromised, the whole network can be damaged.

Compromised-Key attack – By obtaining the private key of a sender, an attacker can decipher secured network traffic.

Man-in-the-Middle attack – This attack is based on intercepting and modifying information between two transmitting nodes. A hacker can modify network routes to redirect traffic to its machine before it is carried out to the destination.

IP address spoofing – In this scenario hackers use spoofed IPs to impersonate a legitimate machine.

Application-layer attacks – These attacks are based on cracking applications that run on servers or workstations. These types of attacks are common because there are many different applications that run on machines and are susceptible to attacks.Hackers use viruses, Trojans and worms to infect devices and gain important information.

Exploit attacks – These are usually made by individuals who possess strong computing skills and can take advantage of software bugs or misconfigurations.