Alongside the benefits of cyber innovation and education, are the disadvantages with which it affects actual individuals and groups of people – the most pressing one being the prevalence of cybercrimes.
Cyber security, which aims at the reduction and control of such crimes, should therefore be given a great deal of importance in response.
What Is Cyber Security?
According to Prosyn IT, cyber security is basically a system of relevant technologies and mechanisms that are designed to combat, if not prevent cyber-attacks – specifically those meant to harm an individual or a group in any aspect.
It works toward the safekeeping of confidential and significant public information alike, the maintenance of online operations and the complete restoration of data and repair of system parts, in the event of shutdown. Experts have key cyber security roles in monitoring and detecting threats both offline and online.
Its Importance
Cyber security warrants a lot of attention on two accounts: it renders us immune to the phenomenon of online safety threats like viruses, worms and Trojan horses, among others; and it accordingly responds to the continuous production and modification of data hacking devices.
Online safety threats are a serious matter for reasons you may already know, but generally, they pose major risks to computer software and hardware. The existence of data hacking devices, on the other hand, implies easy access to exclusive information that may be used illegally. These issues can only be addressed head-on by giving cyber security its due importance.
Key Terms You Should Know
Kinds of Cyber Attack
The three most common kinds of cyber-attacks are cyber espionage, cyber terrorism and cyber warfare. While illicit espionage can happen to all sorts of entities, whether personal or organizational, cyber security as concerns terrorism and warfare is mostly associated with government offices and political groups.
Cyber espionage is the expedient use of certain cyber technologies to underhandedly access confidential or significant information from a subject victim for illegal purposes (e.g. identity theft, plagiarism, wiretapping, etc.). One common example of this kind are social media attacks.
Now an attack worse than cyber espionage is cyber terrorism, which happens by means of hacking into concerned online sites and debilitating critical system parts. It is intended to incite fear in or threaten an interest group, political movement, or even an entire state.
Such an attack is done by hackers by assuming full command of an online site or any database for a certain period of time, delaying regular operations in the process.
Yet, the worst among all cyber-attacks is cyber warfare, which can actually breed permanent damages and repercussions to its victim. Organizations who do this are supervised by bigger forces to infiltrate a particular government, for example, and issue orders that mean ill to its offices and constituents.
Coverage of Cyber Security
Cyber security involves the following forms: network security, application security, endpoint security, data security, identity management, database and infrastructure security, cloud security, mobile security, disaster recovery/business continuity planning and end-user education. All these forms correspond to the elements vulnerable to cyber threats.
Conclusion
With the prevalence of cybercrimes today, the scope and extent of their impacts and the gravity of such, it is only right that cyber security is advanced more than ever.
After all, cybercrimes no longer just pollute the cyberspace, as they have already gone beyond it – to real life.
