As the internet has evolved over the decades, so have the importance of cybersecurity increased. Just as the internet is now effectively an integral part of our everyday life, the evolution of cybersecurity over the years means that in a short while, as the importance of cybersecurity continues to grow, it will also effectively become an integral part of our everyday lives. As the use of the internet continues to grow, the need to protect important personal information also grows with it.
Cybersecurity, in clear terms, means the protection of data, programs, networks, and other information. To prevent them from being accessed and used maliciously, or being destroyed and changed by unauthorized persons. Basically to counter security threats. Another way to describe it is as any activity or operations aimed at minimizing threats and other vulnerabilities, and also enforcing the policies required for prevention, recovery, data assurance, and other operations related to cyber security. Cyber security is basically the provision of security for personal information stored on the internet so that they aren’t accessed by unauthorized persons.
The Importance of Cybersecurity
The number of Internet users in the world keeps increasing, so have the number of digital applications and data networks too. Likewise, the chances of cybercrime and cyber exploitation. It, therefore, becomes important that your data is protected from hackers to attack it.
Inadequate cybersecurity can cause a number of public safety concerns which are grouped into the following categories;
Cybercrime
This is the common public safety concern associated with a lack of cybersecurity. It is basically defined as the use of information technology and the internet to gain unauthorized access, steal valuable assets from the owners or take criminal actions. Cybercrime is strongly associated with a breach of security. Other common criminal activities associated with cybercrime are theft of service such as stealing credit card numbers, cyber fraud, cyberbullying i.e. threatening a victim by taking advantage of their online anonymity, cyber vandalism, identity theft, and impersonation, etc. the victims of one or more of these criminal activities seek ways to get law assignment help are then forced to spend more to enhance their cybersecurity.
Loss of privacy
This can occur due to the action of the individual or some other people. Common reasons why large scale breached occur regularly include loss of a laptop or other devices containing sensitive data. The intruders use video and sound capabilities of devices to blackmail and extort their victims. In the other case, individuals might post their personal information on different social networks, which are IT-based, without a proper understanding of the privacy conditions. This information then becomes accessible to other people that they haven’t given explicit authorization to access.
Activism
The definition of activism is any nongovernmental effort to block, protest or promote political or social change. Some activists have used compromises in cybersecurity to promote their cause. There have been cases where activists take advantage of compromises of installation to make a statement politically, or to create attention by defacing a website or obtaining classified documents.
Espionage
This refers to an attempt by one nation to huddle intelligence on other nations. The intelligence information might be information relating to foreign affairs and national security. Cyber espionage refers to national entities using the cyberspace to conduct espionage activities to huddle important intelligence information. Generally, though, international law does not prohibit a country from gathering intelligence information about another country using any means. But with stronger cybersecurity, cyber espionage will be impossible, or at least very much harder.
Public confidence
Many modern economies have their services of institutions used for everyday activities as the reason for public confidence. When there is damage, even localized damage, to critical parts of the infrastructure, this can affect the public confidence in a very serious way. Therefore, there are attacks that might have serious catastrophic potentials, but they don’t cause actual extensive damage.
Apart from these five public safety concerns explained above, there are many other issues that may arise from inadequate cybersecurity. This makes cybersecurity all the more important as the use of the internet continues to expand.
Every large-sized business organization have to up their cybersecurity to prevent attacks on their systems which can lead to problems with reputation, as well as a financial hit.
The risk management program and cybersecurity should be established based on the organization’s size. Owners and directors of business organizations need to start seeing cybersecurity risks as a significant risk to their business.
In considering cybersecurity risk assessment, there is a framework that can be used. For example, the cybersecurity framework of NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has five continuous and concurrent functions;
- Identify: This involves developing an organizational understanding of the best way to manage the risks of cybersecurity to people, systems, assets, capabilities, and data.
- Protect: Critical services have to be delivered and you must ensure this by developing and implementing appropriate safeguards.
- Detect: In the case where a cybersecurity event occurs, appropriate activities must be developed and implemented to identify its occurrence.
- Respond: Once a cybersecurity incident is detected, appropriate activities must be developed and implemented against it.
- Recover: Appropriate activities must be developed and implemented to maintain the plans for more resilience against cyberattacks and to restore services affected by the cybersecurity incident.
Conclusion
Cybersecurity is not meant for the government or business organization. It is meant for everyone that uses the internet and has their information in it. As the internet becomes more important and useful to us, so does cybersecurity.
