The more we know about how cybercrime works, the better we can protect ourselves and our assets from cyberattacks. Here are some common cyberattack tactics, courtesy of the OPP.

Typosquatting: The attacker buys domain names very similar to legitimate sites (usually a character or two difference) and squats on them, matching a brand’s look and feel. When a user fills out a form, the attacker harvests the user’s login credentials.

Clickjacking: The attacker conceals malicious hyperlinks beneath legitimate clickable content.

Baiting: The target is given a USB or other portable device preloaded with malware.

Doxing: The attacker publicly releases a person’s sensitive, identifying information (typically obtained from social media profiles).

Pharming: The attacker re-directs users from legitimate websites to fraudulent ones for the purpose of extracting confidential data.

Spoofing: The attacker deceives computers or users by faking their identity.

Phishing: The attacker sends an email or text message that appears to be from a legitimate person or organization but contains malicious links or attachments.

Social Engineering: The attacker extracts information from people without them being aware of or feeling interrogated.

Cross-site scripting: The attacker injects malicious code into a trusted website.

Device Drop: The attacker leaves a USB drive, CD-RW, phone or other storage device around an office and writes a tempting label on it, to encourage the finder to connect it to their device. Once accessed, the malicious code is launched.

How to Protect Yourself. Follow these quick tips to help defend yourself against cyberattacks.

Always use strong, hard to guess passwords and don’t use the same password for multiple accounts, enable multi-factor authentication whenever possible, make sure to use secure https connections when browsing the internet, only download files and apps from reputable websites, do not open files or links in emails or texts from suspicious or unknown senders.

Users should also keep their systems and applications up to date, review your security settings on all devices, keep your computer backed up, do not plug any unknown devices into your computer and limit the information you share on social media and only accept friend requests from people you know.

Please visit getcybersafe.gc.ca/en/home or cyber.gc.ca for more information.