What is a cyber attack?

 Cyber attack

     Simply put, a cyber attack is an attack launched from one computer or more computers against another computer, multiple computers or networks.

Cyber attacks might be broken down into two broad types: attacks where the goal is to disable the target computer or knock it offline, or attacks where the goal is to get access to the target computer's data and perhaps gain admin privileges on it. There are a variety of techniques attackers use to achieve those goals, including:
Malware downloaded to a target computer that can do anything from steal data to encrypt files and demand ransom

Phishing  emails  that are crafted to fool victims into giving up passwords or taking some other harmful action

The WannaCry cyber attack took advantage of two key issues: 

1) Hacking tools were stolen from the National Security Agency (NSA) that exploited Windows vulnerabilities; and

 2) The majority of the organizations hit by the WannaCry cyber attack had failed to patch and were running some form of the Windows 7 operating system.

While a ransomware attack is just one form of cyber attack, other attacks occur when hackers create malicious code known as malware and distribute it through spam email campaigns or phishing campaigns.

Overall, cyber attacks have been growing at an alarming rate – in volume, sophistication and impact. In May 2017, Check Point products detected more than 17 million attacks each week. More than half included payloads that were unknown at the time of detection and could not be detected by conventional signature-based technology.