We are living in a world that is swiftly developing. At this world, most of us have been using smart devices and we have been using the Internet with these devices. Generally, our data is kept on the Internet and this place in which this information are stored is designated as cyberspace. In this place, there are lots of attackers, and they are always trying to hack our data. So, we have to ensure security here. The following essay takes a look at some concepts of words that are related to cyberspace, cyberattack then I will mention common cyber threats. Also, I will talk about the significance of cyber security and afterward, we are going to analyze if importance given to cyber security is sufficient or insufficient.
Concepts of Cyber Security, Cyberspace and Cyberattack
Nowadays, a lot of people are active in cyber, but all of them may not have an idea about cyber. In order to better understand the subject, we must basically know them. Therefore, it would be better to start with some basic cyber concepts. Some of them are as follows:
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- Cyberspace: it is a global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures and resident data, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers (Gortney, 2010, p. 58).
- Cyber security: it is basically that providing the security in cyberspace. When doing this, the purpose is to ensure system’s continuity and to guard data from attackers (Gortney, 2010, p. 57). It is the one of the most important things because our data are kept on the cyberspace.
- Cyberattack: it is an attack launched from one or more computers against another computer, multiple computers or networks. Cyberattacks can 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 (Fruhlinger, 2020).
These are three basic concepts about cyber. We have to know these because cyberspace, cyber security and cyberattack are really important for the Internet and technologies. Consequently, these concepts are virtual but concepts that affect us.
Common Cyber Threats
If in anywhere where the topics are related to security, it would be better we may need to know threats therein. Even if this place is not real, knowing common threats is better for talking about the security of this place because we understand better what is protected from what. Then some of these threats are like as follows:
Malware: it means malicious software. Malware that is one of the most common cyber threats is software that attackers try to disrupt or bring damage to a victim’s computer. Usually spread through an unwished-for email attachment or legally-looking download, malware might be used by cybercriminals to earn money or in politically motivated cyberattacks (‘What is Cyber Security?’, n.d.).
SQL injection: it is a means by that an attacker can take advantage of a vulnerability to take control of a victim's database. Several programmers watch out the Structured Query Language (SQL) commands while they are designing databases and lots of data that are harvest from users are sent to these databases. In a SQL injection attack, for instance, a hacker will write some SQL commands into a web form that is wish for name and address info; if the web site and database are not programmed properly, the database may try to run those commands (Fruhlinger, 2020).
Phishing: it is when cybercriminals target victims with emails that seem to be from a legitimate company asking for sensitive knowledge. Phishing attacks are often used to dupe people into handing over credit card information and other personal info (‘What is Cyber Security?’, n.d.).
Man-in-the-middle-attack (MITM): it is a methodology by that attackers manage to interpose themselves secretly between the user and a web service they're trying to access. For example, an attacker may convert a Wi-Fi that belongs to any place to fake Wi-Fi and then attacker can harvest the user’s data using this Wi-Fi (Fruhlinger, 2020).
Denial-of-service attack: it is a brute force technique to try to prevent some online service working properly. For example, attackers may send such a lot of traffic to an Internet site or several demands to a database that it overwhelms those systems capability to function, making them unavailable to anybody. A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack uses a military of computers, usually compromised by malware and under the control of cybercriminals, to direct the traffic towards the targets (Fruhlinger, 2020).
These can be considered the basis of threats. Then these can branch out in itself, but we are not going to talk about threats extensively. Therefore, knowing common cyber threats will be enough. Besides we can see that not every attack bring damage to systems. Some of them seem to legal, even not so, because they do not attack your system. They just try to gather information in a variety of ways. As a result of they are causes more problems for us.
Significance of Cyber Security
Considering today’s technology, the form of information network is not just limited to computers, a lot of people have Internet connection with several devices. According to the data of December 31, 2017, the number of people who are the using Internet actively is 4,648,228,067. Considering that the world population is 7,796,949,710 people, 54,4% of this population has an Internet connection (Internet World Stats, 2020), therefore we can say, in cyberspace, there are lots of data belongs to people, company and nations. So, we can see in there how important cyber security is.
While the Internet has been supplying great opportunities to individuals, organization and nations in varied areas, as well it has also generated a new form of crime. Cybercrime is causing substantially financial losses to the order of trillions of dollars all around the world (Verma & Bajaj, 2008, p. 147). Besides, U.S. Cyber Command has declared cyberspace to be a new domain of warfare, and cyberattacks are in the top three priorities at the U.S. Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) (Geers, 2011, p. 12). In addition, cyberwar is also accepted as information war in some English dictionaries. The information war is a type of operation that involves the activities in which the information takes place and the information itself, aimed at reducing or destroying enemy warfare or using it in own favor. The implementation of this operation in the time of war is called information war (Shelton, 1998, pp. I-1).
Cyber security has a really important place in our lives because most of our data are kept in there. Therefore, we have been working to ensure security in there. If we want to argue importance given to cyber security, we should look at the research related to cyber security.
Reports of Some Organizations
In an article was published in Forbes by Steve Morgan, all reports related to cyber security in 2016 were examined. Certain statistics that obtained for 2016 are as follow:
- According to the AT&T Cyber Security Report, there was a 458% increase in the times hackers looked for weakness of IoT connections.
- According to the Cisco Security Report, there was a 221% increase in the security violations of the web sites.
- According to the Dell Annual Security Report, the number of malwares nearly doubled to roughly 8 billion.
- According to the Symantec Internet Security Threats Report, spear phishing campaigns aiming employees increased 55% compared to 2015 (Morgan, 2016).
- In a circumstance that the numbers are like this, we cannot say to attach importance to cyber security is sufficient because numerous people are using Internet, but hack activities are increasing day by day, too. Maybe we are not affected from hack activities, but these affect us implicitly. Taking everything into consideration, we have to pay more attention to cyberworld.
Conclusions
As a result of the increasing popularity of technologies, companies, people and nations are performing many activities in cyberspace at the present time. Increasing use of technology bring along some issue as well as benefits. The most important sample of these issue are cyber threats and cyberattacks. Also, these issue cause to be massive harm. Therefore, we have to ensure secure in cyberspace.
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