Discover the latest cyber terminology at Netcure

If someone abuses the identity of your company unnoticed and thereby affects third parties, we call it domain fraud. This can be done, for example, by spamming, phishing or setting up a fake website. Often leading, seemingly unapproachable companies, such as postal services, banks or government institutions, are greatly in demand for cybercriminals. You’ll notice this kind of fraud by fake email addresses, often with a spelling mistake.

In this form of identity fraud, a cybercriminal pretends to be someone else in relation to third parties. They’ll abuse the name, email address or their victim’s data.

A low-cost and yet – in certain cases – efficient backup system. You can only write data to it and store it there. Only when you want to download data, you’ll need a different and more expensive solution. Cold storage is ideal for backups and archives.

This is a cyber-attack by email, where the recipient is invited to click on a link. In this case, the criminals try to steal your login, password or data. Typically, the email appears to come from a trusted recipient, such as a colleague, banker or manager. Criminals often use a well-crafted house style in this case, so that you don’t even notice it.

Whereas ‘normal’ phishing is a broad, automatic attack on a large group of users, this is a very targeted method. Spear phishing targets one specific employee or a company. The attack is tailored to the victim, which increases the chances of success.

This is a type of phishing in which the attackers target high profiles, such as politicians, CEOs and celebrities.

These are phone attacks that are perceived to be very personal because you are talking to a real person. Criminals sometimes use voice modifiers, trying to convince their victims with an elaborate story to share their data.

Human nature is based on trusting others. Social engineering will manipulate this mechanism by luring people into a trap via mail or phone. The aim is always the same: to entrap, rob or extort others. Another form of social engineering is entering a company under a false pretence and trying to steal data or gain access to the IT infrastructure.

This is a hacker, but a good guy. He has the same knowledge and skills as a cybercriminal. He uses it to report on vulnerabilities in systems.

This is the fee that a company promises to an ethical hacker. The amount of compensation depends on the vulnerabilities found. This way, companies are encouraging ethical hackers to test their public systems. Ethical hackers sometimes help them find a solution.

A VPN or Virtual Private Network can be seen as an encrypted ‘tunnel’ between your digital device (PC, smartphone, etc.) and a VPN server. It provides a secure connection.

Viruses attach themselves to programmes on your computer. Emails and other media spread it along. Viruses are not always malicious, and have a reasonably predictable behaviour.

A worm is a ‘stand-alone’ which multiplies itself to get to as many computers as possible. It exploits a victim’s vulnerabilities to cause damage.

This is highly malicious hostage software, which specifically targets a victim’s vulnerabilities. These will be abused to ask for ransom. In return, cybercriminals make the promise that they will undo the damage. In a limited number of cases, the aim of ransomware is to destroy the data.

These are fake notifications that come on your screen via pop-ups. They mainly want to scare their victims and lure them to a website. Due to their shape, virus scanners can only detect scareware to a limited extent.

These are advertisements, often too good to be true. Sometimes they are difficult to remove, but they are not always harmful.

This is malicious software that wants to steal information. It takes control of your PC. Criminals can spy on you through the camera and a log can be made of what you enter on your keyboard.

Someone who clicks first, and then thinks… sometimes it’s too late. We don’t want to see your employees being happy clickers.