Cyber security is defined as the collection of methods, technologies, and processes used to help protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of computer systems, networks, and data from cyber-attacks or unauthorised access. The primary goal of cyber security is to protect all organisational assets from both external and internal threats, as well as natural disaster disruptions. Let’s have a look at how cybersecurity works
Cybersecurity and Its Subdomains
Application security entails implementing various defences against a wide range of threats within all software and services used within an organisation. To reduce the likelihood of unauthorised access or modification of application resources, secure application architectures must be designed, secure code must be written, strong data input validation must be implemented, threat modelling must be implemented, and so on. Some of the domains are as follows:
- Data Security and Identity Management
- Network Safety
- Mobile Safety
- Disaster recovery and business continuity planning in the cloud
- Education of the user
Importance and Challenges of cybersecurity
Given the rapidly evolving technological landscape and the increasing adoption of software across various sectors such as finance, government, military, retail, hospitals, education, and energy, to name a few, more and more information is becoming digital and accessible through wireless and wired digital communication networks, as well as the ubiquitous internet.
Recent high-profile security breaches demonstrate the importance of good cyber security strategies at organisations such as Equifax, Yahoo, and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which lost extremely sensitive user information, causing irreparable damage to their finances and reputation. And, as the trend indicates, the rate of cyber-attacks is not slowing down.
What Exactly is a Cyber-Attack?
A cyber-attack is a deliberate attempt by external or internal threats or attackers to exploit and compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of a target organization’s or individual’s information systems (s). Cyber-attackers employ illegal methods, tools, and approaches in order to cause damage and disruptions or gain unauthorised access to computers, devices, networks, applications, and databases.
Difference between cyber-attack and security breach
A cyber-attack is not the same thing as a security breach. A cyber-attack, as defined above, is an attempt to compromise a system’s security. Attackers use various types of cyber-attacks, as described in the preceding section, to try to exploit the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a software or network. In contrast, a security breach is a successful event or incident in which a cyber-attack compromises sensitive information, unauthorised access to IT systems, or service disruption.
Top 11 cyber security best practises avoiding a breach
Below listed are the top 11 best practises for avoiding cyber security breach. You can visit here to know how to get a job as a java developer.
- Provide cyber security training and awareness
- Conduct risk assessments
- Manage vulnerabilities and software patch management/updates
- Apply the least privilege principle.
- Implement policies and procedures for secure password storage.
- Implement a solid business continuity and incident response (BC-IR) plan
- Conduct periodic security reviews
- Backup data
- Encrypt data at rest and in transit
- Design software and networks with security in mind
- Implement strong input validation and industry standards in secure coding.