Our society is increasingly reliant on technology than ever before. There are no signs that this trend will slow down. The best way to stay safe is to stay educated on the threats that lurk on the web. We use smartphones, computers, and many other devices to communicate, work, and entertain ourselves. While technology has brought us many benefits, it has also created new security risks that we must be aware of.
Cybersecurity refers to the practice of protecting devices, networks, and sensitive information from unauthorized access, theft, or damage. With the rise of cyberattacks, cybersecurity has become a critical issue for individuals, businesses, and governments around the world.
What exactly is cybersecurity? Why is cybersecurity important to every company and every individual?
In this blog, we will cover certain basic concepts of cybersecurity that everyone should know.
WHAT IS CYBER SECURITY?
Cyber security is the process of protecting and recovering networks, systems, devices, and programs from any sort of cyberattack. These are intended to access, change, or destroy sensitive data, extort money, or destroy the normal business process and damage personal and financial lives.
Cybersecurity refers to the practice of leveraging technologies, processes, and reliable IT habits to protect an organization’s computer networks, sensitive data, and devices from cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity has evolved from being an IT problem to a business problem for today’s digital businesses.
A secure cyber security system has multiple layers of protection spread across computers, networks, devices, and programs. Cyber security system doesn’t rely individually on cyber defense technology; it also relies on people performing smart cyber defense choices.
IMPORTANCE OF CYBERSECURITY
Cyber security encompasses everything that relates to protecting data from cyber attackers. People store vast amounts of data on computers or on other internet-connected devices, this can be sensitive information like passwords or financial data.
Whether you are an individual, small business, or multinational, you depend on computers almost every day. Companies require cyber security to keep their finances, data, and intellectual property safe.
If attackers gain access to data they could cause a range of problems like sharing sensitive information, stealing funds using passwords, or manipulating data.
TYPES OF CYBER SECURITY
- Network Security – Network security helps protect internal networks from intruders by securing your organization’s critical infrastructure.
- Application Security – Use of software and hardware to defend against external threats that show up during the development stage of an application.
- Information Security – It protects physical and digital data from unauthorized access, use, change, delete disclosure.
- Operational Security – Process of handling and protecting data to access a network. It helps to determine how and where data may be stored or shared all fall under this umbrella.
- Disaster recovery and business continuity – It dictates how the organization restores its operations to return to the same operating capacity as before. Business continuity is the plan the organization falls back on while trying to operate without resources.
- End-user education – It teaches users to follow best practices like not clicking on unknown links or downloading suspicious attachments in emails.
- Cloud Security – Software-based security that protects and monitors data in the cloud and helps to eliminate the risks associated with on-premises attacks.
- Data Loss Prevention – Process of preventing data loss by developing recovery policies in the event of breaches.
TYPES OF CYBER ATTACKS
- Ransomware – Software designed to extort money by encrypting a computer or device data – essentially holding data hostage. And demanding a ransom to restore access. Common types of ransomware include crypto-malware, lockers, and scareware.
- Malware – Software designed to gain unauthorized access to disrupt or damage a legitimate user’s computer. Malware is spread through email attachments to steal login information or to crash your system. Common types of malware include spyware, keyloggers, true viruses, and worms.
- Social Engineering – Social engineering is the process of psychologically manipulating people to reveal sensitive information in the form of a deceptive email. Social engineering is combined with any of the threats listed above to make you more likely to click on links, download malware, or trust a malicious source.
- Advanced Persistent Threats – The intent of an APT is to get unauthorized access to steal data and stay in the network for a long time. APTs often happen in sectors with high-value information, such as national defense, manufacturing, and the finance industry.
CYBERSECURITY VS COMPUTER SECURITY VS IT SECURITY
IT security – also known as electronic information security, is a set of cybersecurity strategies that prevent unauthorized access to computers, networks, and data. It maintains both the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information by blocking intruders. It protects both digital and physical from hackers while moving through a network.
Cyber security is the subset of IT security. While IT security protects physical and digital data from intruders, cyber security protects the digital data on your computers, devices, and networks from unauthorized access, attack, and destruction.
Computer security or network security is a subset of cyber security. It uses software and hardware to protect data sent through your computer to other devices or the network. Network security protects IT infrastructure from being interception and changed by hackers.
WHY IS CYBERCRIME INCREASING
Information theft is the fasted-growing and most expensive segment of cybercrime, driven by the increasing exposure of information to cloud services.
Cyber attacks aim to destroy or change the data integrity to breed distrust in the organization. Social engineering is the easiest form of cyber attack with spyware, phishing, and ransomware being the easiest form of entry.
Data breaches include financial information like bank account or credit card details, personal information, cloud leak, or data spill. Other data breaches or factors driving the growth in cybercrime include:
- Factors driving the growth in cybercrime are
- Hybrid motives pose new dangers in ransomware response and defense
- Improved ecosystem sanitation is pushing threats to the supply chain
- Vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure demand costly resolutions
- Distributed nature of the internet
- Fund flow via cryptocurrencies
- Increase in profit of dark web markets
- Cyberattacks targeting outside the power make policing extremely difficult
IMPACT OF CYBERCRIME
Lack of focus on cybersecurity can damage businesses in the following ways:
- Economic Costs – Theft of corporate information, intellectual property, disruption in trading, and the cost of repairing damaged systems.
- Reputational Costs – Loss of consumer trust, poor media coverage, Loss of customers to competitors.
- Regulatory Costs – GDPR and CCPA compliance, and outdated infrastructure add challenges when adhering to the response time limit set out.
All organizations regardless of the size must ensure that the staff understands cybersecurity threats and the steps to be followed to mitigate them. Companies must provide regular training that aims to reduce the risk of data breaches. It is difficult to understand the direct and indirect costs of data breaches.
CYBERSAFETY TIPS
Cyber attacks are increasingly getting sophisticated and evolving danger to sensitive data. Attackers are employing new methods powered by artificial intelligence and social engineering to breach security controls. Here are a few safety tips to protect yourself against cyber attacks.
- Update your OS & Antivirus regularly
- Use anti-virus
- Use strong passwords
- Avoid using WiFi networks in public places
- Do not open links and email attachments from unknown sources
- Use trusted sites only when providing your personal information
- Back up files regularly
CONCLUSION
Implementing cybersecurity is the primary foundation for IT security operations and is crucial in today’s connected environment. With employees working remotely, applications running in the cloud, and the expanding IoT, it’s becoming difficult to keep track of devices and data.
Companies must operate with a security-first mindset to reduce the cost of disruptions. In order to accommodate a growing IoT environment, one should successfully implement cyber hygiene education and remediation planning