What Is The Difference Between Cyber Attacks and Cyber Threats?

If you own a business that uses the cloud to manage workloads, you have probably heard of the terms cyberattack and cyber threat. They may sound like they are the same but there are a couple of differences between them. 

Why Would A Cyber Attack Occur?

When a cyber-attack occurs, the perpetrator will often seek money or information to gain access to an account. They will often do this through blackmail and one of the most famous cyber attacks involved Sony Pictures, where they had several details of their upcoming films being released to the world. 

Sometimes, you will often see cyber attacks in the public eye. It is because the person who is committing the crime supports a specific cause and believes that it would be in the interest of the public to see this information released. One of those who are involved with these sorts of cyber crimes is the Anonymous group.

What Is A Cyber Threat?

A cyber threat is usually an act that tries to steal or damage data that would be a computer system. It could affect a business in many ways such as loss of revenue or causing customers to leave because of their lack of security. 

Although cyber threats are more common in billion-pound companies, they can also occur in smaller companies. Sometimes, they can even happen to a government due to a rival nation looking to damage them in a war. 

If you are a company that manages private and confidential information, you need to understand how to spot a cybercrime. You also need to know how to prevent these cyber crimes from occurring. There are several ways you can do this but if you question your cyber security, a good way to do this would be to have a vulnerability assessment on your company. You could also have an in-house business cyber security team who helps keep your company protected from any possible cyber crime that may occur. 

Difference Between Cyber Attack and Cyber Threat

A cyber attack is when an action has been made on a computing system against a country or a business, then misusing private and confidential information on that device. 

A cyber threat is slightly different. It is where there is a possibility of a cyber attack occurring on a nation or business. That will then trigger the alarms of a cyber security team which will use the tools they have to prevent the cyber attack from happening. 

A good example would be DDoS Cyber attacks. These are considered cyber threats because they put a company’s systems at risk of being down, potentially losing revenue or information being leaked. 

To Conclude

There are many things that you can do to ensure you are not a victim of a cybercrime. One of the most important things to do is to educate your employees on how to tighten up their security. To do this, they could be educated on how to spot a phishing email if they ever receive one. They could also be taught how to make their passwords stricter and more difficult to bypass. There are many ways to improve your cyber security so make sure you educate your employees and have a cyber team on site to prevent any cyber crime from occurring.