INTRODUCTION TO CYBER SECURITY
Cyber Security, the most challenging arena in the cyber era. It mainly deals with ensuring privacy of computers, server, electronic systems, networks and data from unauthorized access and malicious attacks. As the use and need of technology is continuously increasing day by day, it becomes more important to secure data, so that no unauthorized person can get access to it and malicious attacks can be avoided. Sometimes, cyber security is also referred to as Information Technology Security. The Cyber Security is divided into several categories as follows:
- Network Security
It is the process of protecting or securing networks from any attacks or access, to any unauthorized person or organization.
- Application Security
Its main motive is to keep software’s and devices free from malicious attacks and ensure the security of these apps and prevent their damage.
- Information Security
It protects the data integrity and privacy whether it be stored or be in transit.
- Operational Security
It prevents unauthorized users from making the changes to the data they are not accessed to and protects the respective data.
THE HISTORY OF CYBER SECURITY
The term Cyber Security came into existence due to the development of viruses. Leonard Kleinrock was the first one to send the electronic message, from UCLA SDS Sigma 7 Host computer to Bill Duvall, a programmer at the Stanford Research Institute in 1969. The message that was to be typed “login”, but the system crashed as soon as they typed the first two letters of the word, i.e., “lo”. The two letters of the word were supposed to change the way they were communicating with one another.
Robert Thomas, in 1970s, was the one who created the first computer virus(worm). He also got to know that, it was possible for a computer program to move across a network, leaving its sign, wherever it goes through. The program was named as Creeper, and was designed to travel across Tenex terminals and printing the message: “I’M THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.”
Then, Ray Tomlinson, an American computer programmer, the inventor of email, who was then working at BBN Technologies heard of this invention and was greatly influenced. He reprogrammed that, and named it as “Reaper” which in turn became the first Antivirus Software. This antivirus, whenever found the copies of Creeper, would delete it.
The threats to computers began in 70s and 80s when there was no concept of cyber security. These threats were : accessing of private data by unauthorized sources. Soon, cyber-crimes were used as a weapon against different organizations, countries, states, etc. to look into their private information and breaching their security details.
In 1988, a scientist named Robert Morris, wanted to check the size of the internet, for which he wrote a program. But, this program went over through various networks and multiplied itself. This program became the first famous virus and was labelled as Morris worm or internet worm. It slows down the machine and creates copies of itself.
Nowadays, as the technology is expanding and new methods are being developed to face and resolve the cyber-crimes, the cyber attackers and malwares are evolving at the same rate. So, one must be aware of the fact that anyone can easily be a victim of these cyber malpractices. To avoid these, we just have to take care of the actions we are performing.
WHY SECURITY IS IMPORTANT?
According to the statistics, a computer is hacked every 39 seconds by a hacker in US. The cyber-attacks are so common nowadays that one attack can cause harm to millions of people. Cybersecurity is now more essential as it protects the data of all categories like government, military services, medical organizations, corporate world, etc. All these sectors contain sensitive and confidential data that is required to be kept safe and secure, from hackers and attackers.
As the attacks are increasing day by day, so the above mentioned organizations need to keep their data and information secure and malware free and thus cyber security is compulsory. More likely, the usage of cloud services is boosted up (Amazon Web Services) to store sensitive data and personal information. It’s very common in our daily lives like fetching up the credit card details, bank account details and then stealing the amount in the account. So, we should try to save such kind of sensitive information on cloud storage where no unauthorized person can get access. Also, some people keep their data on their social media accounts, we’re also required to be careful while doing such activities.
In order to beware and secure of the cyber-attacks, all of us must be educated about simple scams, like phishing and some cybersecurity attacks like ransomware or malware attacks that are used to steal personal information.
CHALLENGES OF CYBER SECURITY
Cyber Security has been a hot topic in the world of national security, organizations, government or medical institutions for securing and protecting their data. But, in the world full of increasing technologies, the security is also required to keep all the data safe and protected. Everything is directly or indirectly linked to the internet. These are some of the most common challenges faced during cyber security:
- More attack opportunities for Hackers
With the increased use of technology, there is a large gap between physical and virtual world of information exchange. There are a large number of tools developed to make our life easy like, medical pacemaker, driver-less cars, smart tools for our kitchen, and many more. The hackers can easily get access to these devices as these are the most common devices or tools that are being used by us on daily basis. So, we should be aware while using them.
- Lack of Education
It’s the biggest challenge that we face with each technological advancement. The lack of information and knowledge results in the misuse of the technology and eventually, emerges into a challenge for that tech. There are some security experts at every organization that are dedicated for taking care of the organization’s data, they’re working on. This is only possible if they have enough knowledge about the cyber-attacks and attackers that are emerging daily.
- IoT Threats
The full form of IoT is Internet of Things. It is nothing but a system that helps to interconnect physical devices using internet. Every physical device in the connection, has its own unique identifier(UID) and the data can be easily transferred and shared over this network, simply through internet. When the concept of IoT was introduced, there was no discussion of cyber security then. But when hackers started stealing information through IoT, there has been a difficulty in managing the data and transfer of information over internet for computers, organizations, agencies that are all using IoT for their purpose. Remaining challenges include:
- Ransomware Evolution
- Blockchain Evolution
- AI Expansion
CYBER SECURITY MEASURES THAT WE SHOULD TAKE
Now, we’re very clear about the term Cyber Security and what it actually means. So, in all we’ve to be alert, while keeping our data and personal information on internet, cloud or even on our desktop or on our PC’s. There are some safety measures that we all can take, to ensure that we’re in a secure circle of cyber security.
- Having Authentic Antivirus Software
- Make Use of Complicated/Complex Passwords
- Neglect Suspicious Mails
- Taking Regular Back-Up
- Secure Laptops and Smartphones
- Having Secure Network Connection
Let’s look onto them one by one:
- Having Authentic Antivirus Software
It is the basic requirement of any cyber security system. Hence it’s very essential for a system to have an antivirus software, so that it can detect the viruses and malware, present in the system and recover from these.
- Make Use of Complicated/Complex Passwords
All the computers and networks on the globe requires a password or security key to get access through it, so we should keep a password that is not easy, to prevent any unauthorized person to enter into the system. The password should be a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and special symbols.
- Neglect Suspicious Mails
There’s a habit of all of us to go through all the mails that we have in our box. All the e-mails that we get doesn’t always contains beneficial information. Some of them might contain doubtful links or download attachments that would lead to viruses or give access to any person that can harm our computer. So, we must be aware while looking the mails.
- Taking Regular Back-Up
Either weekly, daily or monthly, we should have a back-up of our data so that our information and important files remains safe and secure. Also, if our data goes missing due to some reasons, then back-up storage will help in retaining the data and files.
- Secure Laptops and Smartphones
Nowadays the laptops and smartphones are portable and easy to carry, wherever we want them to. As we carry our devices along with us, it becomes all the more important to keep our data secure and it’ll be very risky to get our data hacked by anyone.
- Having Secure Network Connection
The internet connection that we’re connecting through must be protected and should have security key for every connection we are dealing with. Sometimes or the other,we all connect to unsecured connections, unaware of the fact that someone could be accessing our device on which we are connecting.So Beware of free connections!!
Moving towards conclusion we can say that even if the cyber security has its roots in all the organizations but still the hackers are capable to hack the systems and harm them or even access the important information or the organization. This can lead to many harmful consequences. In short, we all have to keep our data secure and have to be well informed about how to take ourselves out if we get into such situation anytime. Keep in mind the safety measures and make your system safe!!
