What are the Zero-Day Attacks and How to Keep Safe From It?

Zero-Day Attack

Attacks called “Zero-Day” are one of the most feared and dangerous security incidents, in addition, about 80% of large-scale attacks that occur are due to a Zero-Day on hardware or software devices. These types of attacks affect both home users and corporate environments. Now, why do we refer to these attacks as “Zero-Day”? We are going to put one of the most dangerous types of attacks in context and, with good reason, feared.

What Are the Zero-day Attacks?

How do we get to know that we are facing a zero-day attack? When threats are new or unknown because of the different solutions that detect them, they are called Zero-Day attacks. Consequently, these are known as zero-day vulnerabilities. These attacks have the particularity of taking advantage of such vulnerabilities not yet identified, as well as malware variants to exploit a particular security flaw. The world of cybercrime is characterized by quickly discovering and exploiting any vulnerability or problem that may exist within a system or a machine. Remember that hacks, in general, are not reserved for software but also for hardware.

It is crucial that the professionals involved in these types of systems do everything possible to keep the databases up to date and the functionalities prepared. These systems, which can be detection or prevention, should always be prepared for known attacks, and if possible, anticipate what may come. Consequently, web users will have more tools to be properly protected with effective antivirus and antimalware solutions.

Why These Types of Attacks Occur

For an attacker, discovering a zero-day vulnerability and attacking based on it has its advantages. The response and recovery time after the attack has been detected can be very high, and it will take days until the manufacturer or the community launches a patch that solves the problem since it is necessary to know what the attack is about, why gave, what is the root cause and what to do to solve it. In addition, we must also take into account the time it takes from when the patch is released until all affected users install it since it is not instantaneous.

A worrying factor is that these types of attacks do not stop increasing in frequency, and they may double during the year 2020. The damages that are caused by these types of attacks can easily reach millions of dollars.

What Can I Do to Avoid Zero-day Attacks?

Emphasizing what one can (and should) do, the most important measure is to protect your device. However, just installing an antivirus, malware or a complete security solution is not enough. It is important that we know how to handle the essential or the most important of these tools to get the most out of it and ensure protection.

Another important measure that we must implement is to keep the software you use updated. Both the operating system and the different programs you use. These are updated because they include security patches against vulnerabilities and zero-day attacks that have been discovered. Many people have been victims of attacks for the simple reason of not keeping their programs up to date.

The complexity of Zero-Day attacks is very high. That is the importance that, in addition to people working in technology, all people, in general, should be vigilant and take proactive measures. It may not be possible to mitigate any type of cyberattack by 100% but equally, reaching an important level of resistance to them can make a difference when you notice the reduction of their impacts.