Cyberattack

A cyberattack is any malicious and deliberate attempt to steal, expose, alter, disable, or destroy data, applications, or other assets through unauthorized access to a network, computer system or digital device.

There can be various reasons for a cyberattack, ranging from petty theft to cyber warfare or cyberterrorism.

The used tactics include malware attacks (e.g. ransomware), social engineering scams or password theft, to gain unauthorized access to the target systems, just to name a few.

The consequences of a cyberattack can be tremendous, as they can disrupt, damage, or even destroy businesses. Including the costs of discovering and responding to an attack, downtime, lost revenue as well as reputational damage for a business, the average cyberattack costs over 4 million USD.