What Is a Cyberattack?

A cyberattack is a deliberate, malicious action aimed at digital resources (computers, servers, websites, networks, etc.) with the purpose of disrupting their operation, stealing, altering, or destroying data or the infrastructure itself. Simply put: if someone tries to break into your information system, bypass protection, or disable it – that is a cyberattack.

It is important to note that the word “attack” covers a very wide range of actions: from basic phishing to multi-layered targeted espionage campaigns, from hacking a messenger account of an ordinary user to sophisticated unauthorized operations in the critical infrastructure of entire countries.

Today, cyberattacks are a problem not only for large corporations, as hackers do not bypass startups, small businesses, or freelancers. According to Mastercard research, almost half of small businesses worldwide have already suffered attacks, yet about two-thirds of such companies still consider themselves “too small” to become a target. This is often due to the fact that potential victims do not understand what a cyberattack is, who carries it out, and for what purpose.

Let’s try to figure it out.

Who and what is behind cyberattacks

Cyberattacks can be carried out by individual hackers, organized groups, or even entire state structures. Some cybercriminals seek easy profit, hacktivists fight for their ideas this way, while state cyber forces conduct espionage operations and wage real digital wars. Cyberattacks can be organized by a wide variety of actors with fundamentally different motives:

1. Financial gain

This is the most common motivation: attackers try to steal money, gain access to bank accounts, or demand ransom – ransomware attacks, payment system breaches, and so on.

2. Data theft

Often, the purpose of a breach is to obtain confidential information: stealing customer databases, passwords, trade secrets, or personal or medical data. According to Microsoft, in most investigated incidents, attackers sought to steal data.

3. Espionage

Such attacks can last for months. They are used to collect strategic information about companies, government agencies, or military facilities. For example, industrial espionage to steal research results.

4. Sabotage and destabilization

The goal of cyberattacks may be to disrupt systems, damage infrastructure, or create chaos. An example is DDoS attacks that paralyze the work of banks or public services.

5. Ideological or political motives

Some hackers act for propaganda or protest reasons – these are so-called hacktivists who attack government or company websites as a sign of protest or to promote a certain idea. Such attacks especially intensify during political events.

6. Demonstration of strength or security testing

Sometimes cyberattacks are carried out for self-assertion or to “level up” one’s skills. These actions have a psychological motive – “for sport” or to demonstrate capabilities.

Targets of cyberattacks: What hackers attack

Attackers rarely aim at “everything at once” – they break into the doors that are either easier to open or offer the greatest benefit. Today, the highest-priority targets are user accounts, cloud services, vulnerable suppliers, and, of course, resources that guarantee quick financial gain – payment systems, customer databases, medical data, and so on.

Here is a list of the most frequently attacked digital assets:

Consequences of cyberattacks: Impact on business

A cyberattack can turn a stable business into a crisis in just a few hours. Today, the average cost of a data breach incident can reach several million dollars. As Reuters writes, over the past five years, companies in the United Kingdom alone have lost about 55 billion dollars due to cyber attacks. For small and medium-sized businesses, these numbers mean not just an “expensive lesson,” but a risk of not surviving at all.

The consequences of attacks are not only data loss and financial damage. They also include a damaged reputation, operational instability, loss of customer trust, and other issues:

1. Financial losses

Direct losses – ransom, fraud, downtime – are the most obvious consequences of a cyber attack. Indirect ones include the cost of restoring infrastructure, paying for expert services, legal expenses and fines, and loss of revenue due to downtime.

The financial hit can be devastating and instantaneous for companies of any size. For startups or small businesses, the consequences of cyberattacks are usually too critical. However, large players also have a lot to lose. A telling example is the Co-operative Group, which lost about £206 million in revenue after an incident in the first half of 2025.

2. Data breach

Disclosure of trade secrets, loss of confidentiality of personal or payment data – all of this can be exploited by attackers or competitors.

In the era of digital identity, confidential data is the equivalent of gold in a Swiss bank. When personal information of employees or customers ends up in the hands of hackers, a company loses not only material but also moral capital. Legal consequences are also significant: fines for violating data protection regulations can reach millions of dollars.

3. Reputational damage

Money, even if not immediately, can be recovered – but trust is much harder to regain. The reputational consequences of cyberattacks act like a slow poison: they kill gradually and over time. Users stop entering data on the website, partners suspend agreements, and investors demand a recovery plan before providing funds.

After a cyber incident, almost half of companies face difficulties in attracting new clients. And such a “trail” of unreliability can follow a business for years.

4. Business process interruption

When servers are encrypted, systems don’t work, and employees can’t even access corporate email – the business “falls into hibernation.” For manufacturing companies, this means production line stoppages; for e-commerce, loss of orders; and for a startup, a complete failure in front of investors.

As a result, loss of revenue and additional recovery costs.

5. Legal and regulatory consequences

Violation of data confidentiality or security is an offense and can lead to fines under international and local regulations (GDPR, NIS2, and others). Public disclosure of a data breach is mandatory in many countries, and untimely or concealed reporting can increase fines and cause greater reputational damage. If client or partner data or funds were exposed or stolen during the attack, lawsuits for financial or moral damage compensation are possible.

The legal consequences of cyberattacks are not a formality but a real threat. Therefore, to minimize risks, companies should have a clear plan for response and communication with regulators.

In addition to the above, as a result of an attack, a company may lose competitive advantages due to stolen developments, face a drop in stock value, investor distrust, and other risks.

The cost of even a single cyberattack always exceeds the cost of prevention. By investing in cybersecurity, a business not only prevents risks – it protects its stability, reputation, and customer trust.

Types of cyberattacks

Today, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of types of cyberattacks. Some hackers rely on scale – the more emails, links, and hacking attempts, the higher the chance of hitting a target. Others act precisely and surgically, hunting specific companies or data. And some go even further – they invent new weapons using technologies for which no protection yet exists.

That is why cyber attacks can be conditionally divided into three groups: the most common, the most destructive, and the newest – those that form the threats of tomorrow. Let’s look at the most notable types of cyberattacks in each of these categories.

Top 3 most common categories of cyberattacks

These attacks account for the majority of cyber incidents worldwide.

1. Phishing and social engineering.

The object of cyberattacks is mostly people, not just digital systems. Today, phishing messages are extremely convincing, so they easily make users click on fake links and reveal personal data – texts are written without mistakes, logos and signatures are forged as accurately as possible, and emails from a “bank” look convincing even to experienced IT professionals.

Equally common are phone calls “from the bank security service” or messages from a “manager” in a messenger – the goal is the same: to make the victim voluntarily perform the required action.

2. Credential compromise

This is obtaining unauthorized access to accounts through phishing, passwords stolen in breaches, weak passwords, session token theft, or brute force. After compromise, the attacker often moves laterally within the network, escalates privileges, and exfiltrates data or deploys malicious actions on behalf of a trusted user. Stolen cloud tokens and API keys are especially dangerous.

Protection includes multi-factor authentication, login monitoring, and a strong password/key rotation policy.

3. Exploitation of vulnerabilities and legacy systems

Many companies continue to operate on old versions of software, hardware, or web platforms that no longer receive security updates. To penetrate a network or gain privileged access, hackers actively exploit these weak spots, from software “holes” to open ports and misconfigured servers.

One uninstalled patch or an outdated component can become an entry point for a large-scale attack. Regular system updates, vulnerability monitoring, and configuration control are the simplest and at the same time one of the most effective ways to prevent such attacks.

Top 3 most destructive types of cyberattacks

These attacks are no longer accidental or just the trivial hacking of an inattentive user’s account. They are weapons designed to cause maximum damage.

1. Ransomware

This is malicious software that encrypts files or blocks access to systems and demands a ransom for decryption or the return of control. In addition to encryption, attackers often threaten to publish stolen data to increase pressure on the victim.

The consequences of ransomware cyberattacks include business process shutdowns, high recovery costs, fines, and reputational losses.

2. Supply chain attacks

Instead of hacking a large corporation directly, attackers compromise the “weak link”, a contractor, plugin, container, or CI/CD pipeline, and spread the damage through official channels.

This way, a single compromise can infect hundreds or thousands of end organizations at once – the multiplication effect makes such incidents catastrophic and difficult to trace.

3. Attacks on critical infrastructure (OT/ICS)

Attacks on operational and industrial systems (OT/ICS) target controllers, PLCs, and other components of production lines, energy, water supply, transportation, etc. The danger of such cyberattacks is that the consequences go beyond digital resources – malfunctions can cause physical damage to equipment, supply disruptions, risks to human life, and large-scale socio-economic consequences.

The targeted systems often run on outdated software, with limited capabilities for updates and recovery.

Top 3 newest categories of cyberattacks

These attacks seemed like science fiction just yesterday, and today they are already appearing in cyber intelligence reports.

1. AI-powered attacks

Machine learning algorithms help attackers craft perfect phishing emails without errors, imitate a specific person’s writing style, forge voices, and even create realistic deepfake videos of executives. Beyond social engineering, AI is used to automatically detect vulnerabilities, bypass security systems, and generate malicious code that adapts to the environment.

2. Cyberattacks via IoT

“Smart” devices stopped being just gadgets a long time ago. Surveillance cameras, controllers, sensors – all of these are small computers connected to the network, but often without even basic protection. Attackers use such devices for reconnaissance, sabotage, or as an entry point – by infecting one IoT device, they can penetrate a company’s internal network or unite thousands of devices into a botnet to launch a large-scale DDoS attack.

3. Attacks on cloud services, APIs, and access tokens

As businesses move to the cloud, the number of incidents related to the theft or misuse of access keys, authentication tokens, and API interfaces increases. Due to configuration mistakes, excessive user privileges, or a lack of control over “invisible” resources (shadow IT), attackers gain direct access to cloud storage, databases, or services.

Such cyberattacks are difficult to detect because they occur without visible breaches or malware. Protection includes strict access management, key rotation, API activity monitoring, and the implementation of the principle of least privilege in cloud environments.

How to recognize a cyberattack

Most attacks happen unnoticed, and users realize it too late. That’s why it’s important to detect the first signs that indicate an intrusion or preparation for it in time.

Typical signs of a cyberattack:

• sudden system slowdown or unusual network load;
• suspicious emails or messages asking to follow a link or update a password;
• disappearance or modification of files without explanation;
• unexpected notifications about logins, password changes, or account settings modifications;
• appearance of new programs, processes, or windows that you did not start.

What to do if you suspect an attack:

• immediately disconnect the device from the network (Wi-Fi, VPN, corporate system);
• inform the IT department or security team – do not try to fix everything on your own;
• do not delete files and do not restart the device – this may destroy traces of the incident;
• record the details (time, suspicious actions, notifications, messages, emails).

Early detection helps localize the attack and minimize the consequences. In cybersecurity, a simple rule applies: the faster you react, the less damage the attacker can do.

Prevention: How to protect yourself from cyberattacks

Cybersecurity is not a one-time “set it and forget it” action, but an entire ecosystem of habits, decisions, and tools. It’s important to understand: today, the question is not whether hackers will attack you, but when they will try to do so. No company or user is 100% protected from hacking, but everyone can take measures to protect their digital assets and make access more difficult for attackers.

Here are some proven tips on how to protect yourself from cyberattacks:

1. Start with digital hygiene

Sometimes the simplest measures have the greatest effect. Here’s what you should do first:

• Passwords. Use long, unique passwords and a password manager. Never reuse the same password across services.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA). Even if a password is stolen, requiring a code from an SMS or app will stop most attackers.
• Updates. Do not ignore system and software updates. 80% of successful attacks occur due to known but unpatched vulnerabilities.
• Backups. Make backups of important data and store them separately from the main network. This is the number one protection against ransomware.

2. Educate and warn employees

The most common entry point into an information system is still a human. That’s why the following are extremely useful:

• Awareness training. Even short internal phishing trainings significantly reduce incident risks.
• Checking emails and links. Explain to employees that they should not click suspicious links, even if an email looks “official.”
• Zero trust mindset. The habit of doubting every “unexpected” message is the foundation of digital immunity to cyberattacks.

3. Strengthen technical protection

The human factor is important, but technologies must work for you, not against you. Be sure to implement:

• Modern antivirus and EDR systems. They not only detect viruses but also analyze software behavior, stopping suspicious processes.
• Network protection. Firewalls, VPNs, and traffic filtering are basic tools without which it is difficult to build reliable cybersecurity.
• Monitoring and logging. The earlier suspicious activity is noticed, the cheaper the incident will cost.

4. Conduct regular checks

Information systems should be evaluated both internally and with the help of independent cybersecurity experts. Important measures include:

• Security audit. External or internal audits help reveal weaknesses before attackers do.
• Penetration testing (pentest). Ethical hackers test the system’s strength and provide specific recommendations.
• Incident response plan. Every company must have a scenario in case its protection is breached – from incident isolation to notifying clients.

5. Think one step ahead

The world of cyber threats changes every month. That’s why you can’t relax even after creating a strong cybersecurity system. You need to constantly “keep your finger on the pulse” and prepare for future, yet unknown threats.

• Monitor new attack vectors. AI, IoT, quantum technologies – all of this is the near future of cybercrime.
• Invest in cyber resilience. Cybersecurity spending should not be seen as wasted money. In today’s reality, it is a necessary condition for a successful business.
• Build a culture of security. When digital vigilance becomes the norm, corporate security works coherently and without coercion.

Conclusion

Cyberattacks have become an integral part of the modern digital world – they affect not only large corporations, but also small businesses, organizations, and individual users. The increase in the number of attacks is the result of technological, economic, and social factors: digitalization, the widespread adoption of IoT, and the development of artificial intelligence open new opportunities for attackers.

Hackers no longer act alone – they have formed a black market where even a beginner can buy or rent a ready-made cyberattack. That’s why today it is important not only to respond to threats but to be prepared for them – to have a clear action plan, an up-to-date protection system, a trained team, and verified backups.

The Datami team conducts security system testing, identifies vulnerabilities, and helps strengthen protection so that any cyberattack becomes only a temporary challenge, not a disaster.