Albania severs diplomatic ties with Iran over cyber-

attack-8th September 2022

The hackers tried to paralyse public services, delete and steal government data, and
incite chaos

The said attack failed its purpose... all systems came back fully operational and there
was no irreversible wiping of data.

Cyber-attacks meaning and example events

Shoulder surfing

Shoulder surfing is when someone tries to look over the shoulder of

the user, typing their password on a device or pin code on an ATM
machine.

Example: Members of a gang of shoulder-surfers arrested in

Amsterdam on Sunday, 22 December 2019

Spear phishing

Spear phishing is where someone sends an email to a user who may be a CEO
of a company to induce the user to reveal confidential information.

Example: Spear Phishing Attack Exposes Tax Information of 3,000 Community College
Employees on March 29th, 2016
Whaling
Whaling is when someone pretends to be someone else, like an
employee that is emailing user who is an employee of an
organisation, encouraging the user to do something, like transferring
money to the hacker.

Example: A Snapchat HR employee leaked employee payroll data after a CEO email scam
in 2016

Dumpster diving
Dumpster diving is where someone goes through an organisation’s
trash to get computers that may have data on them, which the
hacker can steal that data.

Virus
Virus is a malicious code that replicates itself by copying to another
program or a document.

Worm
Worm is a malicious program the spreads itself through a network.

Example: Thunderstrike 2: World's First Firmware Worm That

Infects Mac Computers Without Detection on August 5th,
2015.
Trojan horse
Trojan horse is a type of malware that disguised itself as a program
and try to access the user’s device.
Example: Trojan posing as IT refund skulking to attack Android phone bank
customers on September 22nd, 2021

Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware that prevents the user from

accessing their files by encrypting the files and the hacker would ask
the user a ransom in exchange for decrypting the files.

Example: NHS IT supplier held to ransom by hackers on 11th August

2022.