What is cybersecurity – a brief technical description?

Cybersecurity can be summarized as efforts aimed at preserving the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of computing systems. It's the practice of affording security to networks and systems to protect them from cyber attacks.

According the definition of cybersecurity by Cisco, (https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-cybersecurity.html), cybersecurity is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks. These attacks are usually aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information; extorting money from users; or interrupting normal business processes.

Implementing effective cybersecurity measures is particularly challenging today because there are more devices than people, and attackers are becoming more innovative.

Cyber attacks have been on the rise and are targeted at accessing, modifying, or deleting data, money extortion, and the interruption of normal services. Cybersecurity is of great concern to today's businesses since there has been a high adoption of information technology to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in business operations. The current business environment is such that there are many devices, systems, networks, and users. All these are targeted by cyber criminals, and multiple techniques have been devised and used against them. Cyber attacks are only becoming more effective and sophisticated. Therefore, cybersecurity is becoming a survival mechanism rather than a luxury for many businesses. Cybersecurity has multiple layers, which cover devices, networks, systems, and users. These layers are intended to ensure that these targets are not compromised by attackers. In organizations, these layers can be compressed into three categories: people, processes, and technology.

People

This is the category that includes users. Users are known to be particularly weak in the cybersecurity chain. Unfortunately, cyber criminals are aware of this and often target them rather than systems during attacks. Users are the culprits in creating weak passwords, downloading attachments in strange emails, and easily falling for scams.

Processes

This category encompasses all the processes used by the organization. These can include business processes, such as the supply chain, that could be exploited by attackers to get malware inside companies. Supply chains are, at times, targeted in organizations that are well secured against other methods of being attacked.

Technology

Technology relates to both the devices and software used by an organization. Technology has been a prime target for cyber criminals and they have developed many techniques to compromise it. While security companies try to keep abreast of the threats facing technology today, it seems that cyber criminals have always had the upper hand. Cyber criminals can source new types of malware from underground markets and use them in multiple attacks against different technologies.