Introduction to Cyber Security

INTRODUCTION TO CYBER SECURITY

Cyber crimes has cost businesses a minimum of $4.88 million dollars in 2024. Cyber crimes consist of a huge number of criminal activities performed online by hackers which includes theft, data breach and espionage.

Which brings us to through study of cyber security. How can these crimes be prevented? How to help business owners ? How to detect different forms of cyber crime and how to avoid them.

What is cyber security Cyber security is a technology created to prevent cyber crimes, it is designed to protect networks and devices from attack, damage or unauthorized access by hackers.

Cyber Security provides a term called CIA which stands for:

C - Confidentiality

I - Integrity

A - Availability

This term CIA has served as cyber security industry standards for computer safety and security against external attack since the time of first mainframes.

Confidentiality: The principle of confidentiality asserts that information and functions can be assessed only by authorized parties. Example: A secret file created for the military. The file is confidential and should be protected from unauthorized damage, attack or threat from hackers that could try to steal confidential information.

Integrity: The principle of integrity asserts that information and function can be added, altered or removed only by authorized means and people. This means when an incorrect information is added to the file it can be corrected by an authorized user.

Availability: The principle of availability asserts that systems, functions and data must be made available on demand according to agreed upon users based on the level of service.

Advantages of cyber security

Protect business owners: Cyber security protects business owners from hackers who try to steal important information to the business. The hackers might sell the information to criminals, ask the business for ransom or cause industry espionage.

Increased productivity: When an organization is safe from hackers and scammers trying to steal critical information from a particular industry and use them for dubious means it promotes high level of productivity. The organization will be able to perform well without threats from unauthorized external sources. This also applies to networks and devices.

Inspire customer confidence: Customers willing to invest in an organization or buy a product from an organization need to be sure they can be protected from unauthorized users that might get access to their information which could lead to financial loss, data breach or espionage.

Stop websites from crashing: Cyber security secures website from hackers tricks

Protects your customers or clients

Cyber crime

Cyber crime is any criminal activity that involves a computer, network device or a network. Most cyber crimes are carried out in order to generate profits for hackers or cyber criminals. These crimes are carried out against computers or devices directly to damage or disable them, spread malware, steal secret information and more.

Types of cyber crime.

Computer assisted crimes: This types of crimes are criminal activities that are carried out using computer as a mere tool and are not specific to computers. Examples of computer assisted crimes are Denial of services (DOS), Fraud and more.

Targeting computers for crimes: This types of cyber crime focus on systems, servers, networks and data stored on the system. Cyber criminals target a particular network or system using viruses and they also sniff into a particular network.

Computer incidental to the crime: These are crimes when a computer is related or incidental to the crime. This crime occurs without the use of a computer, this means a crime could occur without the use of the computer. Example of this crime is list of customers for traffickers

Motives Behind Cyber Crime

Disrupting business continuity

Demanding ransom

Theft of information

Manipulation of data

Financial loss to the target

Damage the target reputation

Propagating religious belief

Propagating political belief

Achieving state military objectives

Creating fear and chaos

Disrupting critical infrastructure

Types of hackers

Hacktivist: This type of hacker is an individual who promotes a political agenda by hacking especially defacing or disabling websites

State sponsored hackers: This type of hackers are Individuals employed by the government to penetrate and gain access to top secret information and to damage the systems of other governments. Information gotten from the other system of government is used to destroy the other government or country. Top countries do this alot.

Cyber terrorist: Cyber terrorist are Individuals with wide range of skills motivated by religious or political beliefs to create fear by large scale disruption of computer networks

Script kiddie: This is an unskilled hacker who compromises systems by running scripts, tools and softwares developed by real hackers. They do this without any bad motive in mind they are either doing it for fun or they are doing it to practice skills learnt

Suicide hackers: Suicide hackers are Individuals who aim to bring down critical infrastructure for a cause and not worried about facing jail terms or any other punishment. Unlike destructive hacker that hides their identity, suicide hackers do not hide their identity they are willing to die or serve jail term if caught.

Security analyst: Security analyst are Individuals professing hacker skills and using them for defensive purposes. They can be called hackers for good cause. This type of hacker is trained to detect cyber crimes and protect the organization from losing information or data which could be detrimental to the growth of the organization. They are schooled professionals with certificates, they pose a threat to cyber criminals and stop them immediately they identify cyber crime.

Destructive hacker: This type of hackers are Individuals with extraordinary computing skills that resort to malicious and destructive activities.

This type of hackers work both offensively and defensively at various times.

Most common attack in cyber crimes

Malware attack- Malware are software created and developed by hackers, this malware is sent to the target computer, network or devices to disrupt, attack, steal information very essential to a business which could lead to financial loss on the target end. Malware softwares are also called malicious software. Examples of softwares like this are Trojan, worm, Spyware, virus, ransomware and more. When this are sent to a network or device it corrupts the data network, which will make your network or device down completely. They kidnap your network to get and damage the business network infrastructure, they use your system network to send spam emails, crypojacking or run botnets.

Phishing: Phishing is a type of cyber crime mostly targeted to the end user. The attacker acts as a trusted person or entity to steal the user details either credit card number, bank verification number or password. They also send emails and messages to the end user to have access to the user data and information.

Denial of service: Denial of service is done by an attacker to disrupt an organization's network or system, they send a lot of traffic to the website which makes it crash and temporarily available to use at that time. They use botnets to generate a lot of traffic to the website which leads to slow performance, disruption of service on the website and difficulty accessing the online services. They render the online service useless for the main time and attack during this period.

Middle man attack: This is when an attacker poses as an authentic individual, they get in between two individuals and steal information and impersonate the other individual. This type of attack works in different ways such as eave dropping which means the attacker listens to the two parties communicating by intercepting the communication stream to steal information, another way is impersonation, data Manipulation and more.

Password attack: This type of attack is targeted to get weak or compromised passwords. This type of attack is pretty much simple, the attacker tries to guess the user password by combining common words and using an automaton for a large number of password combinations.

Drive by attack: This involves a download of malicious code to your computer which disrupts your system.

Cross site scripting attack: This type of attack is done using a malicious code, this code is sent to the website to steal the user information and direct the user to a different website.

Eavesdropping attack: This is when the attacker intercepts communication between two parties to steal information. The attacker then poses as one of the party involved in the communication process to steal information and data which could lead to financial loss, data breach or espionage.

How does cyber security work

Two factors authentication: This is also called 2FA, it is a type of security which requires not just password but another form of verification to help protect your account from unauthorized users. This allows the user to verify their identity before they gain access to a system, computer or device. The first step is for the user to generate a strong password which cannot be easily detected, the second step is to verify with something the user has such as fingerprint, face identity or voice recognition before verification which is sent through a code to the user personal number, mail or through an app to complete the authentication process.

Secured password: A user password should be strong and hard to detect, it should include alphabets, words and signs and it should be up to 12 words in total or more.

Regular update: The system should be updated regularly to help detect phishing, malwares or attacks sent to the system, computer or website.

Anti virus: There are anti-virus softwares that prevents a computer from a virus that could attack the computer, it detects the virus and sends a notification to the end user to be aware of the danger ahead.

Firewall: This is a security device that acts as a barrier from the end user or authorized network and an unauthorized source. It monitors and controls the traffic that comes and goes out of a network based on a specific rule. Firewalls come in both hardware or software which can be installed in the computer or both can also be used on a particular network.

No phishing: This allows the system to recognize emails, text messages or links sent by a scammer to disrupt the network.

Cryptography: This is also known as encryption, this is a form of security that protects systems, network and devices essential information with coded keys and algorithms that only authorized sources can understand and identify. This enhances secured communication, data storage, authentication, digital signature, block chain technology and more.

Who is a cyber security expert

A cyber security expert is an individual employed by an organization to protect their data,They do this through a variety of technique such as

Finding weakness: A cyber security expert or data analyst finds where the problem comes from. He analyzes and detects the main cause, either through phishing, malicious wares or unsecured password. After they find the weakness they repair and then strengthen the areas where an attack might have occurred and make sure the system is updated regularly to prevent any form of threat in the future.

Monitoring systems: They monitor the system regularly to detect a new tactic developed by the hacker to disrupt the service of the system or devices and make sure all it is blocked and all devices are protected from unauthorized sources.

Network breach: Network breach is when an unauthorized user gets access through a system, website or device to disrupt the general performance and steal information. Cyber Security analyst prevents network breach by incident response planning, data loss prevention measures, employee training, regular security audits, strong security protocol, vulnerability assessment and more.

Domains in cyber security

Asset security

Identity and access management

Communication and network security

Security architecture and engineering

Security operations

Security assessment and testing

Software development security

Security and risk management