Why Do Cyberattacks Happen? Motives and Prevention

The risk of a cyberattack looms large for individuals and organizations alike. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in digital systems, seeking to steal confidential data, disrupt services, and gain unauthorized access. These attacks can have severe consequences, both financially and operationally. In this article, we’ll explore the motivations behind cyberattacks, their costs, and preventive measures to protect your organization from these ever-evolving threats. 

Introduction to Cybersecurity Threats: Why Should You Care?  

As cyberattacks increase in frequency and sophistication, it’s more important than ever to be aware of the risks and potential impacts. 

The Cost of Cyberattacks 

Organizations can suffer from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These incidents can inflict a wide range of financial and non-financial costs on organizations: 

• Direct financial costs include expenses incurred to respond to the attack, such as forensic investigations, data recovery, legal fees, and regulatory fines. 

• Lost business cyberattacks disrupt operations and lead to lost sales and productivity. 

• Reputational damage occurs when data breaches and other cyber incidents erode consumer trust, damaging a company's reputation and future earnings. 

• Increased cybersecurity spending is when a business invests in additional security measures and insurance coverage after a cyberattack. 

Such attacks can cost millions of dollars and damage an organization’s reputation for years to come. 

What Are the Main Motivations Behind Cyberattacks? 

The motivations behind cyberattacks can vary depending on the attacker, but it’s usually for financial gain. They may steal financial data, such as credit card numbers or bank account information, or extort money from victims by holding their data hostage with ransomware. Other reasons driving cyberattacks include: 

• Espionage is when state-sponsored actors or hacktivists launch cyberattacks to steal sensitive data, such as trade secrets or government data, to alter the balance of power.  

• Disruption is when attackers may be motivated by the desire to disrupt critical infrastructure or cause chaos. This could include attacks on power grids, transportation systems, healthcare providers, and financial institutions. 

• Ideology is when hacktivists launch cyberattacks to promote a particular political or social cause. Activities include website defacement or DDoS attacks to take down websites or online services. 

How Do Cybercriminals Choose Their Targets?  

Cybercriminals select targets based on a combination of factors. For organizations, the inherent value of the datasets found within financial institutions, healthcare providers, and large corporations are attractive targets because they yield a significant financial payoff. Hackers also look for targets with weak cybersecurity defenses or known security vulnerabilities within the technology stack. 

Individuals are often targets within larger, generalized attack campaigns. Threat actors may launch phishing attacks or other scams indiscriminately, hoping to ensnare anyone who clicks on a malicious link or opens an infected attachment. By clicking these links or suspicious attachments, bad actors can gain unauthorized access to personal, confidential information stored on the device. Additionally, individuals may be pursued as secondary targets if confidential or personal information is contained in larger data breaches. Information from businesses or third-party service providers can be leveraged and combined to successfully target individuals in widespread attacks. 

Preventative Measures to Protect Your Organization 

Unfortunately, it’s a matter of when, not if, a cybersecurity breach will impact your organization. It's important to proactively implement a comprehensive risk management, governance, and technology program to prevent cyberattacks and mitigate damage. Some key areas to focus on are: 

• Security awareness training educates employees on cybersecurity best practices, teaching them how to identify phishing attempts, create strong passwords, and avoid suspicious links or attachments. 

• Security testing requires regular internal and external penetration testing and web application testing. Implementing these tests is an effective way to mitigate threats due to shadow IT or misconfigurations and identify web application attacks like man-in-the-middle, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting.  

• Strong passwords and multi-factor authentication enforce complex passwords and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all user accounts. MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second verification step beyond just a password. 

• Vulnerability management increases visibility into software assets and present security issues. Having a defined process to apply security and performance updates is a critical component to reduce the available attack surface.  

• Data backup and recovery implements a robust data backup/recovery plan to restore data quickly in the event of a cyberattack. It’s important to include key outsourced workstreams in business continuity planning, which adds heighted security if a vendor or partner is affected by a cyberattack.  

• An incident response plan encourages a developed plan that outlines roles, responsibilities, and communication protocols in the instance of a cyberattack. Regularly test and update the plan to ensure its effectiveness.  

• Comprehensive security operations (SecOps) play a crucial role, helping businesses proactively manage and monitor their cybersecurity defenses through a combination of people, processes, and technology to detect, prevent, analyze, and respond to cyber threats. A core component of SecOps is the Security Operations Center, which functions as a centralized command center and continuously monitors the organization's IT infrastructure for suspicious activity and potential threats. 

Mitigating Cyber Risks 

Choosing the right cybersecurity professionals to help you mitigate the impact of cyber risks can be challenging, so it’s important to know what to look for. Highly trained IT risk and cybersecurity specialists will have professional designations such as Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). An experienced team will understand how to align data governance and security operations to provide the necessary visibility and, when needed, response capabilities to effectively address threats.  

EisnerAmper’s cyber risk team takes the time to get to know each client, tailoring our solutions to fit your needs. Contact us below to discuss how we can help.