Cyber attacks can take several forms, including cyber fraud aimed at monetary gain, cyber spying to obtain private information, cyber stalking and bullying to frighten or intimidate individuals, cyber assault to cause damage through malware or denial of service attacks, and cyber warfare between nation states seeking to disrupt critical infrastructure through digital means.

1. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 1
Cyber attacks

2. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 2
5 types of cyber attack
• Cyber fraud
• Cyber spying
• Cyber stalking and bullying
• Cyber assault
• Cyber warfare

3. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 3
Cyber fraud
• Cyber attacks that are generally aimed
at gaining monetary or related gains for
the perpetrator.

4. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 4
Cyber-fraud
• Phishing attacks combined with fake websites to steal
users’ personal details and, with these, steal money
from their accounts
– Fraudsters set up a fake website that looks like a bank
website
– Emails are sent to large numbers of recipients with a link to
this site and a message trying to lure them to log on
– If the click on the link, their personal details are collected and
then used by the fraudster to access their legitimate site

5. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 5
© McAfee 2011

6. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 6
Cyber spying
• Cyber attacks aimed at gaining
information for the perpetrator. Related
to cyber-fraud in that one aim of cyber-
spying may be to sell the information
gained

7. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 7
Cyber-spying
© The Hacker News 2011

8. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 8
© GCN 2011

9. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 9
Cyber stalking and bullying
• Cyber attacks which are designed to
frighten and intimidate individuals rather
than businesses or government
• Often targeted at young women
• Usually social media based – Facebook
or Twitter

10. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 10
© Irish Independent 2013

11. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 11
© Daily Mail, UK 2012

12. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 12
Twitter trolls

13. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 13
Cyber assault
• Cyber-attacks aimed at causing damage to
information or equipment that is being
attacked.
• Damage may be physical damage to
equipment, reputational damage or corruption
or deletion of important information.
• Cyber bullying is also a form of cyber assault
as its aim is to cause psychological damage

14. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 14
• Related to cyber fraud in that some
attacks such as Distributed Denial of
Service (DDOS) attacks may be
precursors to attempts to extort money
from those affected by the attacks.

15. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 15
© threatpost.com 2012

16. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 16
Cyber warfare
• An extreme form of cyber-assault where
at least one of the parties involved is a
nation state.

17. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 17
Cyber warfare attacks
• These are much harder to validate as, for obvious
reasons, neither the perpetrator or the victim wish to
release information
• Denial of service attacks
– Government and critical infrastructure sites attacked by DoS
attacks with a view to taking them offline
• Malware
– Malware introduced to target and damage government and
infrastructure facilities

18. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 18
© The Guardian 2007
© BBC 2007

19. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 19© CTV News 2012

20. Cyber attacks 2013 Slide 20
Summary
• Cyber fraud
• Cyber spying
• Cyber stalking and bullying
• Cyber assault
• Cyber warfare