Cyber Security Essay

Introduction

There are some processes and technologies that are formed for the security of computers, software, data, computer hardware and networks that are known as cybersecurity and all of these concerns things are protected by access and vulnerable supply via the Internet by cybercriminals, hackers and terrorist groups. The Internet and network that is based on information from unauthorized access or digital equipment are protected from cybersecurity (Klonoff & David, 2015). This is era of technology and the Internet is supposed as main source of current information but it is also used to conduct business and selling and advertisement of various products. Business can be processed as it leads to communicate with customers and all of the financial transactions are made through it. The Internet is also allowing various advantages such as providing opportunities through which advertisement of business is done all over the world in minimum charges with less effort paid by human with a shorter period of time. The behavior of users was not supposed to track on the Internet. Autonomous computers are allowed to link by the Internet so that resources and information can get shared and a common platform can be provided for community of researchers. The Internet is providing a wide range of opportunities for its users and researchers and at the same time, it is providing threat opportunities to cyber-terrorists and hackers to hack information of others. The Internet is used by terrorists and cyber attackers for wide range of benefits such as they gather information related to their terrorist attack through it and recruit new terrorists (Czosseck, Christian, & Talihärm, 2011). Motivated acts of terrorism are also enacted by use of the Internet. Communication among terrorists is also facilitated with use of the Internet and all of the information related to terrorist is collected.

Cybersecurity

With the increase in technology and increased focus of people for getting the latest information people are mostly relying on the Internet sources through which they get authentic source of information. They rely on the Internet for communication such as cell phones, emails and texting or transportation such as control of traffic signals and airplane navigation. The government is also using source of the Internet in keeping birth and death records, tax records, allowing licenses and keeping social security (Solms & Niekerk, 2013). The finance department includes bank accounts, electronic paychecks, and loans that are also easily processed through use of the Internet. Medicine department is also using the Internet for equipment checking and to keep medical records for long term and education is also based on use of the Internet with variety of researches that information can be gained by the Internet, providing virtual classrooms and online report cards. It can be predicted that large amount of information is stored in a personal computer of an individual that can be leaked through any cyber-attack (Klonoff & David, 2015). This data can be transmitted and can be misused that leads to increased sources to get greater security to keep personal and other sensitive information to the owner. All of the information in a system is protected by cybersecurity and it can be information related to any field in which a person is working and that leaked information can harm that institute or that person.

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Three Core Principles of Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is not a simple thing. It is getting important with advanced technology as it is important to save stored information in their systems. Three core principles of cybersecurity are described as below:

1. Confidentiality. Information that is stored in any computer or personal equipment can be sensitive and it is the core principle of cybersecurity to keep that information private and confidential to the owner only and only appropriate users can have access to it (Atoum, Issa, & Ali., 2014).
2. Integrity. Information that is stored in a computer or software must keep in its original form and there should not be any changing before allowance of the owner or the organization itself.
3. Availability. Information stored in a system is available to the person who is required for it and there is access provided by the appropriate authority (Scully & Tim, 2011). All of the confidential information in a system must be available to the authorized people only such as a medical record of a patient must be revealed only to doctors, insurance, hospitals, agencies of government or the patient himself and this seems its confidentiality. Tight security must be protected to medical records that no one can alter that information without allowance of the authority and must keep integrated. They must be available only to authorized users only. This is important as well as included in ethical concerns that personal information of anyone should not revealed by the doctor or by any person of the hospital without permission of patient.

Importance of Cybersecurity

As the threats of hacking have been increased in most of the online systems that are linked with internet, it is required by cybersecurity to decrease these threats that include targeting protection of data from theft, decreasing online vulnerabilities and it is highly demanded by cybersecurity to increase security of system and increased level of information (Hiller & Russell, 2013). With the increased chances of threats and attacks on online systems, organizations are getting highly affected because of their leaked sensitive information, it is required to have cybersecurity and it is highly demanding to have it in their system so that large threats can be decreased and they can protect their official and sensitive information that can lead to saving their reputation and also lead to protect their very personal information that they do not share publicly.

Hacking threats and leakage of information through computers are getting easy and average computers can get easily hacked when they are connected to the Internet and their information can be easily leaked. Different websites are being created by many people and they are seen infected every day because of increased threats to applications and functions related to the Internet. Data breathing is at its highest rate and hundreds of millions of records are breached by hackers in these systems (Solms & Niekerk, 2013). Hackers are continuously launching new methods to hack difficult and security-based systems and these threats are getting increased day by day. With the increased security threats these days, it is getting important to have cybersecurity to protect highly sensitive information that is getting compulsory to protect data from increased number of hackers and can lead to official protection of systems and images of organizations (Tarter, 2017).

Risks

With the increase of the use of the Internet in life of people and increased concern of hackers with great number of methods to hack, risks are getting increased for security. There are some examples that show that system can be affected by cyber-security incidents and have several threats for it. There can be many of the reasons such as improper security control or there can be manmade errors of naturally occurring disasters or it can because of some other reasons and these threats include:

1. Daniel-of-services. Authorized functionality of the networks is protected and this risk refers to attack this privacy and it can affect systems and applications by exhausting resources. If a website of a government agency is shut down, there is an impact of Daniel-of-services that was aimed to protect citizens to access information or for accomplishment of transactions (Scully & Tim, 2011). It can have impact on financial sector of a business and can impact critical services such as emergency medical system and is having impact on communication.
2. Malware, worms and Trojan horses. With the increased number of instant messaging, infected non-malicious websites and malicious websites, these threats spread and lead to cause leakage of information. Most of the websites enormously download malware that is affected to website and they are not having any kind of knowledge for it (Klonoff & David, 2015). This is also called drive-by-download and sometimes websites require other methods to download the chances of that increase of threats to spread legal and sensitive information.
3. Botnets and zombies. It is referred to as robot networks in which aggregation of compromised computers is connected with the central controller and these compromised computers in this system are called zombies that can increase the threat level. With the advancement in attack techniques, this will continuously increase threats for attack and increase level of security issues (Solms & Niekerk, 2013). These computers can be available to wide range of users and the people operating these computers with less technical knowledge can get easily attacked by these services and their information can be leaked. These technologies of attack are getting more advanced and it is getting more difficult to detect these threats and hacking skills.
4. Fake security software warning. These are run by cyber-criminals as while downloading any file or while using any software, an alert come for removing virus or there is an alert to threat, these all are fake threats that are shown by criminals and they show options to download certain files through which these viruses can be removed. They show some applications to download that can protect their system from danger but it is actually the real threat (Scully & Tim, 2011). Users do trust this kind of piece of advice and they download the recommended file that leads to creating threats by stealing the entire save data and sensitive information that can seriously harm the user and the organization for which user is working. There can be opening of malicious websites while following link on some websites that can bring breaching in their systems.

Growth in Cybercrime

Because of an increased level of cyber-crime, it required to have cybersecurity so they can get protection from harmful material. The technology is increasing and with advancement in technology, ratio of people conducting cyber-crimes is also increasing with increase in key techniques that are adopted by them to hack many of the systems and to get useful information through it. Information technology is making it easier to handle many of the tasks that are leading to increase in use of the Internet and various websites. Because of this increased use, almost few people are protected from it. It was recorded by 2013 that the Internet is widely being used by 2.7 billion people and 4.4 billion people are still in need to connect with it to accomplish their needs (Bhatt & Pant, 2011). People make it essential part of their life and made life impossible without the Internet, mobile phones or computers.

All of the fields are using it and making all of the records in almost every field and to perform communications. Increased level of globalization also made it compulsory as, without means of communication at global level, businesses cannot be spread all over the world (Kumar, Goutam, 2014). All of the financial institutions and banks are also using the Internet in wide range to accomplish their worldwide financial transactions. With the increased level of use of the Internet and a lot of stored information in it, it is getting compulsory to protect this information and it is not possible without cybersecurity. There were reported 100,000 viruses that were active on daily basis and all of these were not identified because of increased level of techniques and skills utilization in it (Scully & Tim, 2011). Most of the websites were also discussed in that report.

Increased in Cybersecurity with an Audit

With the increased complexities and increased number of breaches in daily life and increased technical life of individuals as well as organizations, it is getting important to know the weaknesses of security system of an organization so security can be more restricted. All of the cybersecurity risks associated with an organization must be identified clearly to provide better protection to business and to increase performance of cybersecurity so an organization can get protection from number of risks and future threats that can highly affect productivity and image of an organization in the competitive market (Jaishankar & Karuppannan, 2011). Without monitoring, it can lead to certain manmade threats that can lead to severe breaching and can cost heavily to a company. This audit is important to assure the significance of cybersecurity and its effective working and all of the following areas must be converted in cybersecurity audit:

IT Infrastructure

All of the systems of an organization are highly required to test operating services of an organization and it is also required to check IT services of a company to assure all of its operations and their effectiveness to minimize the level of threats. It is important to check services of IT that either is detecting malware systems or not (Jaishankar & Karuppannan, 2011). Their protection level is also checked that how much they are protecting from various attacks of malware websites and hackers. Specific actions are taken to reduce if any weakness found in this audit.

Inspection of Devices and Software

All of the information related to an organization is kept in software and several devices so it is important to check the security level of all of these devices. Significant impacts of network downtime can also be reduced by this inspection and it is also providing opportunities for better working and better performance of these devices and its inspection is compulsory because IT is major source of information of any of the organization (Klonoff & David, 2015).

Best Practice Documentation

Details that are related to unique IT infrastructure are important to determine this documentation is based on size and scope of the organization that up too much extent an organization is required to have high level of security practices (Kumar, Goutam, 2014). There is a lot of expensive documentation when there is a large level of organization and it is important to secure that information.

Conclusion

With the increased level of globalization and increased level of concern for people for doing businesses at international level is leading increase in use of the Internet. Another field of life is also massively occupying use of the Internet in their work and made it a significant part of their lives but with increase in technologies, skills of hacking and cyber-crime rate is also increasing that is leading a huge negative impact on organizations as their personal information is leaked that can impact reputation of the organization as well as reputation of the senior staff. With these increased threats, a heavy cybersecurity system is required by organizations so they can save their personal and official information with complete protection and no human error or natural disaster can impact their company because any kind of breaching can lead to heavy amount of loss in productivity of an organization. To save a company from future threats of breaching, it is important for them to maintain and audit the cybersecurity that can lead to protect them from all of the increasing threats related to it in the society. It is important for a company to invest money in cybersecurity auditing and accomplish recommended changes to avoid any kind of future issue that can lead to downfall of the company. There are numerous ways through which unethical websites are leading to increasing threats and it is important to protect it so any kind of crime can be significantly avoided. People and most of the companies are heavily putting attention to it because of the increased number of cases of breaching that is getting common these days and affecting large amount of productivity.

References

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