Table of contents

1. Cyberattacks: types and protection of IT security against hackers

Cyberattacks: types and protection against cyberattacks

At the end of August 2025, a cyberattack on a British automotive manufacturer brought its production lines to a standstill for weeks. The incident triggered a domino effect in the supply chain and led to a double-digit drop in sales figures. This scenario is no longer an abstract danger, but a real risk to the operational resilience of every company.

As criminals operate increasingly professionally in the digital world, a patchy cyber defence strategy is insufficient for protection against cyberattacks. The consequences go beyond mere financial losses and include the loss of critical business secrets, the theft of customer data, and lasting damage to market positioning.

Effective risk management for cyberattacks is based on the interlocking of preventive security architectures, a field-tested incident response plan, and complete IT documentation. This is the only way to minimise attack vectors and crucially shorten recovery times (RTOs) in an emergency.

This article shows the types of cyberattacks and concrete defensive measures. You will learn how integrating i-doit into your existing ticket systems optimises the responsiveness of your IT team and establishes a proactive and resilient security culture.

Definition of a cyberattack

A cyberattack is the targeted attempt to damage, manipulate, or gain unauthorised access to IT systems, networks, or data. Attackers systematically exploit vulnerabilities in the infrastructure. In doing so, the motives of the hackers who overcome IT security can vary widely: they range from financial gain to economic espionage to politically motivated destabilisation.

The most common goals of a cyberattack

Theft of sensitive data

Attackers steal personal data, financial data, or even intellectual property such as design plans. They then monetise this information in underground forums or use it as a basis for follow-up attacks (e.g. spear-phishing) against partners and customers.

Sabotage of IT systems

Criminals paralyze or manipulate systems to bring about a business interruption. Attack methods such as ransomware or large-scale DDoS attacks can bring operational continuity to a complete standstill and cause significant restart costs.

Economic and industrial espionage

This involves the systematic spying on competitors or state actors to secure strategic advantages. The focus is on the exfiltration of research and development data, strategic plans, or customer databases, particularly in the sectors of high technology, defence, or pharmaceuticals.

Extortion: encryption and/or publication of sensitive data

Attackers encrypt your data with ransomware and demand a ransom. In "double extortion" scenarios, they additionally threaten to publish confidential information to increase the pressure to act. Even if you pay, there is no guarantee that your data will be recovered or not published.

Manipulation of data

Instead of stealing or encrypting data, attackers alter it in a targeted manner. This manipulation undermines the trustworthiness of business information and can lead to fatal misdecisions. Data-sensitive environments such as the financial sector or critical infrastructure (KRITIS) are particularly at risk here.

Physical destruction of IT and OT infrastructure

Some cyberattacks escalate from the virtual to the physical level and aim to damage hardware or industrial control systems (Operational Technology, OT). Critical infrastructures such as energy suppliers, logistics centres, or healthcare facilities are particularly vulnerable here.

Types of cyberattacks: the most common threats

Cyberattacks occur in many forms. Understanding the threat landscape forms the basis for any resilient strategy for protection against cyberattacks. The following types of cyberattacks represent the most critical threats:

Phishing

Phishing is a form of social engineering that targets the human factor. Attackers use fake communication channels (such as emails, websites, or messenger services) to pose as legitimate actors and entice users to disclose authentication information. Highly personalized attacks (spear-phishing) on key individuals in the company are particularly dangerous.

Ransomware

In a ransomware attack, attackers make critical data stocks and often entire systems inaccessible using cryptographic procedures. Their goal is to extort a ransom for the recovery of the data. Such a cyberattack often leads to an immediate operational standstill.

DDoS attacks

The goal of DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) is to sabotage the availability of an online service or network infrastructure. Attackers overload a system with a massive flood of requests, which often originate from a distributed network of hijacked systems (botnet). DDoS attacks serve as a direct extortion tactic or as a diversionary tactic to conceal more subtle types of cyberattacks.

Zero-day attacks

In a zero-day attack, criminals exploit a vulnerability in a software or a system for which no official patch from the manufacturer exists at the time of the cyberattack. In this critical window of time, the hackers use the gap in IT security to implement malware unnoticed, establish backdoors, or steal data. This makes protection against such cyberattacks particularly difficult.

What happens during a cyberattack?

A cyberattack usually follows a structured procedure that can be divided into several phases. Learn here what happens during a cyberattack:

• Reconnaissance: The attacker identifies potential targets and looks for vulnerabilities. Using passive (e.g. OSINT) and active methods (e.g. port scans), they analyse the IT infrastructure to uncover attack opportunities.
• Infiltration: Based on the insights from phase 1, the attacker now compromises the system. They exploit a vulnerability to place a payload (e.g. malware) and covertly set up an initial entry point.
• Escalation: After successful infiltration, the attacker attempts to spread unnoticed through the network (lateral movement). They intend to gain access to critical systems and data. This phase often spans over months to avoid detection.
• Covering tracks: The attacker manipulates or deletes log files and other traces to complicate forensic analysis. Often, they also implement persistent mechanisms that allow them to maintain long-term access to the compromised network.

Protection against cyberattacks: prevention and defence

For effective protection against cyberattacks, you must closely interlock technical and organisational measures and anchor them in clear processes. The goal should be to build a multi-layered security architecture. This does not only defend against cyberattacks, but also minimises their impact if a compromise succeeds.

Technical measures

• Internal network security: Next-generation firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems form the first line of defence. They analyse data traffic for signatures and anomalous behavior to identify and block attack attempts in real-time.
• Vulnerability and patch management: A systematic, ideally automated patch management process minimises the window of time between the disclosure of a vulnerability and its remediation.
• Data encryption: Sensitive data should be protected during transmission (data-in-transit) and at rest on storage systems (data-at-rest) using strong cryptographic procedures, making it worthless to the attacker.
• Network segmentation: By dividing your network into logically isolated zones, you prevent the uncontrolled spread of an attacker within the internal network.

Organisational measures

• Employee training: Regular training sessions sensitise your employees to recognise and correctly react to phishing attempts and other social engineering tactics.
• Access management: Consistently apply the principles of "least privilege" and "need-to-know". Every user and every system must only access the resources strictly required for the respective task.
• Establishment of emergency plans: In your incident response plan, define who assumes which tasks in an emergency, what the escalation and communication paths look like, and which steps you initiate to restore normal operations as quickly as possible.
  
  

Monitoring and documentation as part of protection against cyberattacks

Seamless IT documentation should be an active component of your cyber defence. To detect attacks by hackers on IT security early on and react in a targeted manner, you need complete transparency across your infrastructure. Tools like i-doit map the entire IT landscape in a central Configuration Management Database (CMDB). In doing so, they visualise the dependencies between systems, services, and assets.

On this valid database, you can proactively identify vulnerabilities, specifically optimise security architectures, and make well-founded decisions in the shortest possible time in an emergency.

i-doit and ticket systems: efficient incident management during cyberattacks

In the event of a cyberattack, every second counts. An uncoordinated reaction leads to longer downtimes and higher damages. By connecting i-doit as a CMDB directly to your ticket system, you create a highly efficient incident response process.

How the link optimises your handling of cyberattacks:

• Context-sensitive ticket creation: A ticket system records the security incident, while i-doit enriches the ticket in real-time with all relevant data from the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). The processor immediately sees which systems, assets, and configurations are affected.
• Coordination of the response team: The ticket system functions as a "single source of truth" for processing the incident. Tasks are clearly assigned and traceably documented. Since i-doit provides the database, all team members work with the same valid information.
• Shortened response time through context information: All necessary information is available directly within the ticket. The incident response team can immediately begin analysis and containment because the entire context is just one click away.
• Automated documentation and reporting: After closing the incident, you use the complete history in the ticket system to analyse it. Relevant insights, such as newly identified vulnerabilities, flow directly from the ticket back into the CMDB in i-doit and keep your documentation up to date, e.g. to meet compliance requirements.

Improving protection against cyberattacks and response in an emergency

The question is no longer "if" you will become the target of a cyberattack, but only "when". Therefore, you should prepare for protection against cyberattacks early on. By seamlessly documenting your IT infrastructure and clearly defining your incident response processes, you can actively limit damage and quickly regain operational control.

The integration of a central CMDB like i-doit into your ticket system is the decisive lever here. This link transforms your incident management from a reactive crisis mode into a structured, data-driven process. The result is not only an accelerated response time, but also the foundation for a sound post-mortem analysis and the continuous strengthening of your security architecture.

Take your incident management to the next level and strengthen your cyber resilience. Learn in a personal demo how you can strategically optimise your protection against cyberattacks with i-doit.