Securing the data center from cyber-attacks is quite difficult today. The number of attacks directed at data centers of different businesses and enterprises across the globe has increased significantly over the past years. In this article, we are going to talk about the various vulnerabilities and attacks that can affect your data center, and how to prevent them.
let’s get into it
Vulnerabilities And Common Attacks in Datacenter
DDoS Attacks
DDoS attacks, or Distributed Denial of Service attacks, have been used by cyber attackers and hackers for decades. A DDoS attack occurs when an enormous amount of traffic gets sent to a targeted server intending to gobble up all the bandwidth and disrupt server access for its rightful users.
In the past decade, the world has seen some major DDoS attacks on different small and big-sized companies, including; Google, Amazon Web Services, OVH, GitHub. According to Cisco’s analysis, over 10 million DDoS attacks got made in 2020 alone. The same analysis forecasted a significant rise in DDoS cyber-attacks in the future. Cisco’s forecast entails the number of DDoS attacks will have a 100% increase to about 15.4 million by 2023.
It remains a tremendous concern for all the data center owners.
Several poorly secured IoT-connected devices are getting produced every day, and it’s quite easy for hackers to compromise data centers and exploit network servers using unsecured IoT devices. If the right security measures don’t get implemented, things can go from good to OMG! within seconds.
Ransomware Attacks
Remember how many people wept when the “WannaCry” ransomware attack took place? Almost 200,000 computers across hundreds of countries got infected with WannaCry.
A ransomware attack occurs when malicious software gets installed on your computer, which after getting installed, gains access to all the files and folders on your computer, and uses encryption to seize your data. Recent years have highlighted a rise in ransomware attacks on enterprise infrastructure.
Ransomware can spread through email attachments, pop-ups, messages, etc
After successfully taking over your system, the ransomware demands a ransom in cryptocurrency (to maintain the anonymity of the hacker) as an exchange for the decryption key.
External Access
Hackers can also leverage Cloud Access Security Brokers or third-party DNS servers to get access to a data center. Hence, overlooking the external services being used within your data center may bring you serious nightmares. Consider installing a third-party remote access system like NordVPN, which is a leading and experienced VPN provider.
Although they experienced quite a breach back in 2018. Dyn, a very popular and trusted DNS service provider also became a victim of an attack that halted their service alongside the service of many big enterprises like PayPal, CNN, Comcast, Boston Globe, etc.
Application Attacks
Application attacks happen when an application that is being used for providing the service of a data center, such as the control panel or customer dashboard, gets infected or compromised. This can cause service unavailability and severe loss of reputation for the data center provider.
Hackers consider this as a great way to attack data centers because it requires very little resources in contrast to a DDoS cyber-attack.
Internal Attacks
The biggest security threat can come from an attack by a data center’s own employees. As the employees have access to the servers of a data center, they can abuse their ability to inflict damage. These attacks are the most dangerous, but most data center providers remain unprepared for these kinds of attacks.
Phishing Attacks
Phishing attacks get activated by sending a message, email, or website that pretends to be authentic to a person with credentials. If the attacker becomes successful to pretend like an authentic source, the person may release the credential by himself thinking that the message is from a trusted source. And once the attacker gets the credential, he can easily access the target server and do whatever he wants.
Using Vulnerable Software
Software and operating systems are key components that help data centers to run smoothly. If any of this software contains a vulnerability, hackers and attackers will exploit the weakness and find their way into your data center. It’s extremely important to always apply updates and patch the software used to operate your data center.
It’s crucial to always protect your digital assets and content in this ever-growing digital landscape. Cybersecurity must be a top priority for you if you significantly depend on the Internet to run your business and conduct personal activities online. Ensure to protect every data center network surface and respond to network glitches quickly and confidently.
You must leverage actionable insights and scalable data center solutions to secure your employees’ devices, IoT network connections, data infrastructure, and all business proprietary data.