Nimrat Kaur
Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bhopal
In the world of technology, where everything is transforming into the digital form, security is increasingly threatened becoming a sensitive issue now more than ever. Cybercrime has become a big market. In the world now emanating from an insecure system, it is important to make people aware of cybersecurity, cyber crimes and how any one of us can become victims of the same. This article also seeks to answer common questions like what are the preventive steps to be taken and how to know that you are at risk?
What is Cyber Security?
Cybersecurity is protecting the information and maintaining its integrity.
“Every object comes with pros and cons”
As quoted above, similar is the digital world, which is growing bigger daily making security of systems more challenging. With all the sensitive information in our system, the privacy of individuals is always at risk. In India, cyber crimes are divided into two categories: first, attacking computer via virus, hacking, DOS attack. Second, real-world crimes like credit card frauds, terrorism attacks, EFT frauds, pornography, and so on.
The study of cybersecurity has become an important concern with the increased reliance on computer systems. Taking preventive measures in this field has become difficult as hackers are becoming more innovative with the rise in technology.
Types of Cyber Securities:
- Network Security: The method to secure network theft from outside attackers or malware is network security.
- Application Security: The software is secured from virus threats. The security measures of software must be designed, planned before building software.
- Cloud Security: The protection of data in cloud-based services and applications, is cloud security.
- Disaster Recovery: In this risk assessment is performed, establishing priorities and developing recovery strategies in case of disaster. The business must have strategies for data recovery that is lost due to attack to resume normal business and access all the information again as quickly as possible.
Types of Cyber Attacks:
- Direct attack: When the attacker copies the data from another computer directly, modifying the system, installing unwanted software, keyloggers, or can corrupt the complete data of the system. Even the system protector antiviruses will not be able to function. Such attacks might be prevented by the use of Disk encryption.
- Denial of attack: When the attacker is not able to decode the password and attacks the user system by continuously submitting the wrong password. In such case, the system might crash.
- Network Attack: The theft of network by opposing companies for the business benefit is one of the biggest issues of the digital corporate world. All data of the companies today is stored in computer systems that are not safe, complete data can be corrupted or stolen and might be used for unethical purposes or threatening.
- Lack of Education: Sometimes unknowingly a person might drag virus into the system on not following the proper security measures.
- Foreign attack: Government, military, healthcare sectors store complete essential data on computer systems. Other countries might attack private data with wrong intentions to use against that country or steal strategies of the country. With the growing instances of cyber-attack, companies and organizations need to take preventive measures to safeguard the data.
- Phishing: It is the practice of sending fraudulent emails resembling reputed company emails. In this case, hackers ask for account details, credit card information. They send links on message quoting: “Your account credited with USD 10000000. Claim your money today.” Then they ask for account details to withdraw money. The details so provided by the user are used to steal from the bank accounts.
Are you Safe from a Cyber Attack?
Common people don’t know about cybersecurity. They do not know how to protect their data from hackers. Some signs of cyber attack are:
- Recent password change
- Password reset emails
- OTP on messages
- Emails from websites you have not subscribed to
- Information from people that they are getting data from you or your data
- Account accessed from other IP address
How can you protect yourself from a Cyber Attack?
If you do not have any knowledge regarding cybersecurity, there is no need to worry. Some preventive measures to protect your data are:
- Do not register on any unauthorized website or app, it might corrupt your system. Some websites might use your data in the wrong way. Therefore, before providing details verify the security of apps or websites.
- While registering on any website use strong passwords, make them complex so your account is difficult to hack.
- Keep your personal or private information locked on social media, especially sensitive personal information like your address or phone number or card details.
- Talk with children about security issues. Keep eye on them, so that their security does not get compromised.
- Use anti-viruses like Norton that provide real-data protection. It protects the system against malware containing ransomware, that protects financial and private information whenever you go online.
There is a lot more to learn in terms of cybersecurity. The world of Cybersecurity is very big. It is important to secure your data for safety and think twice before taking any step that may endanger you or your family.
REFERENCES:
https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-cyber-security
https://www.kaspersky.co.in/resource-center/definitions/what-is-cyber-security
