Computer these days are 24/7 connected with each other, through the advancements of internet both computer and mobile devices are connected with one another channeling information from one web server to another. This ease in exchange of information has made a ground breaking impact on our lives, from social media to search engines we all depend on the internet to consume information. This heavy reliance has subjected web servers to host some private information as well and with this come cyber threats in the picture.
With increasing digitalization, the risks of security breaches are bound to increase as well, the solution to all of this? Cybersecurity! Cybersecurity is basically meant to protect sensitive information on cyber/digital platforms. Without an affective cybersecurity plan your website/application is like an unlocked safe. In these times of rapid digitalization, web consumers and business owners must ask themselves the following:
- How much of my life revolves around the internet and its use?
- Do I have personal information like even photos, videos and documents stored online?
- How much is my business dependent on the internet? What would happen if it’s compromised?
- What does privacy mean to me? And how much do I respect my customer’s privacy and security of their information?
Very thing is dependent on computers these days, in fact if you’re not online what are you even doing? We cannot control the increasing use of computers, we also cannot stop hackers from trying to steal information and leverage it for money. But we can implement strong cybersecurity measures on our online commodities and make them secure from any cyber threats out there. This is where Cybersecurity comes in!
Areas of Cybersecurity:
Let us explore some of the some popular and in demand areas in Cybersecurity.
- Infrastructure Security
Whether you are coming out of college or a cybersecurity training online, infrastructure security is the most basic branch of Cybersecurity. Infrastructure security basically refers to physical security of systems and servers that modern day organization rely so heavily on. Some examples would be:
- Water reserve osmosis plants
- Traffic signals
- Shopping malls
- Hospitals
All these examples may not seem that critical as first glance but in reality they are very much. For example an electricity grid contains sensitive information from resource and mineral capacity to consumer’s information, if an electricity grid comes under effect of a cyberattack, all this information could be compromised.
It is a job of Infrastructure security engineer to program security protocols into data servers to prevent any outside attacks. After all having organization that obtained such information have a responsibility towards their customers to protect their information.
Security Engineers are also responsible for creating contingency plans in case of any security breach, backups are taken frequently and restore points are made.
- Application Security
Application security has immensely popular in the past decade. Web applications have become immensely popular these e-commerce websites share a big portion of this. Application security mainly focuses of software security techniques and protocols, it also includes SQA of applications making sure that adequate security measures are taken when programming any new or updating an existing feature in an application. Making sure of these things reduce security risks and tackle many issues before they even arise.
Applications are connected to the internet which makes more exposed to cyber threats. That is why application security has picked up drastic paced in the past few years. Some types of application security are:
- Antiviruses
- Firewalls and Encryption
Application security features prevent applications from unwanted and harmful exposure. To help ensure unauthorized access of applications cybersecurity professional programs threat detection algorithms into apps.
- Network Security
Network can simply defined as the chain of different mediums through which devices communicate globally. While most areas of cybersecurity are more concerned with outside threats, network security engineers keep a close eye for internal malware and viruses that may hurt the system from within. Network security engineers ensure that all internal networks are secure and can only be accessed by authorized persons only.
Machine learning has also picked up pace in network security these days, teams program certain functionalities into system that enable it to make security decision without any human involvement. Like a safe guarding itself. Network administrators keep check of all the suspicious server activity and establish red flags accordingly these flag help the system identify attacks from same sources in the future and block them at hand.
Common examples of such implementation are:
- Two factor authentication
- Auto block user based on failed attempt
- Restrict login from specific IP and regions
- Cloud Security
Cloud based technologies have taken over the internet like storm, more and more companies are moving towards cloud platforms. With involvement of big tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google the impact of cloud will increase exponentially over time.
Cloud Security is somewhat similar to physical data centers security the only difference is that Cloud Computing server have no on premises existence and risk of onsite security breach in minimal.
What sets Cloud computing security apart is that it is someway more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Because every bit of information stored in Cloud platform is delivered through software the chances of breaches increase. Common practices in Cloud Security used to minimize threats are:
- Use trusted software
- Understand compliance
- Continuous monitoring
- Managing lifecycles
- Internet of Things Security
The internet of things is picking pace in the digital world. It is basically a cascade of connected devices making relational decisions based on certain parameters are programmed into them. It is estimated that the IoT industry will be worth $520 Billion by 2021.
IoT data servers, storage systems are critical more its operational core because in many cases IoT devices make decisions based on previous data trends. So if the data is compromised it can all fall apart real quick.
Right now security is one of biggest concern of the IoT industry and professionals who can affectively make devices secure are high in demand. So if you are currently in a cybersecurity training online, IoT is the way to go forward with.