Discover how robust cybersecurity can empower your business.

In the contemporary landscape, there has been a significant rise in online fraudulent activities, emphasizing the critical role of cybersecurity as a protective measure.

Cybersecurity refers to any technology, measure, or practice for preventing cyberattacks or mitigating their impact.

It focuses on safeguarding individual and organization systems, software, computing devices, confidential data, and financial resources from computer viruses, advanced ransomware attacks, and other threats.

Cyberattacks have the potential to disturb, harm, or dismantle businesses, and the financial impact on victims continues to increase.

A strong cybersecurity strategy protects all relevant IT infrastructure layers or domains against cyber threats and cybercrime.

Types Of Cybersecurity (In the Cybersecurity Domain)

• Critical Infrastructure Security:

Critical infrastructure security safeguards the computer systems, applications, networks, data, and digital assets essential for national security, economic well-being, and public safety. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States created a cybersecurity framework to assist IT providers in this field. The US Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) offers supplementary guidance.

• Network Security:

Network security stops unauthorized entry into network resources and identifies and halts cyberattacks and network security breaches. Concurrently, network security ensures that approved users have secure and prompt access to the required network resources.

• Endpoint Security:

Servers, desktops, laptops, and mobile devices, known as endpoints, continue to be the main target for cyberattacks. Endpoint security plays a crucial role in safeguarding these devices and their users from attacks, as well as in defending the network against threat actors who exploit endpoints to carry out attacks.

• Application Security

Application security safeguards on-premises and cloud-based applications, preventing unauthorized access and data misuse. It also blocks vulnerabilities in application design that can be exploited by hackers. Modern development methods like DevOps and DevSecOps integrate security and testing into the development process.

• Cloud Security

Cloud security is responsible for protecting an organization’s cloud-based services and assets, including applications, data, storage, development tools, virtual servers, and cloud infrastructure. It operates on a shared responsibility model, with the cloud provider responsible for securing the services and infrastructure, and the customer responsible for protecting their data, code, and other assets stored or run in the cloud.

• Information Security

Info Security involves safeguarding an organization's vital information, including digital and physical data, against unauthorized access, disclosure, use, or alteration. Data security is a subset of InfoSec and is the primary focus of cybersecurity measures.

• Mobile Security

Mobile security covers various disciplines and technologies for smartphones and mobile devices, including mobile application management (MAM), enterprise mobility management (EMM), and unified endpoint management (UEM) solutions, which enable configuration and security management for multiple endpoints from a single console.

We've delved into the diverse world of cybersecurity. Now, let's uncover the threats that challenge cybersecurity.

Malware refers to software designed to harm computer systems or users. Almost every modern cyberattack involves malware. Hackers use malware to gain unauthorized access to systems, hijack them remotely, disrupt or damage them, or hold them hostage for ransom.

Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts a victim’s data or device and demands a ransom. It represented more than 343 million victims and a 72% increase in data breaches from 2021 to 2023. Current ransomware attacks involve double extortion, demanding an additional payment to prevent the sharing or publication of the victim's data, and some even include triple extortion by threatening to launch a denial of service attack if ransoms aren’t paid.

Phishing involves deceptive messages that trick people into sharing sensitive information or sending funds to the wrong recipients. It includes bulk scams as well as more sophisticated schemes like spear phishing and business email compromise (BEC). Phishing is part of social engineering, which uses psychological manipulation to tempt individuals into unwise actions.

Insider threats are risks from authorized users who misuse their access, either intentionally or accidentally. They can be harder to detect than external threats and often go unnoticed by traditional security solutions. Despite common belief, 44% of insider threats are caused by malicious actions. Additionally, incidents involving insider threat actions result in the exposure of one billion records or more, far surpassing the impact of average external threats.

A DDoS attack aims to overwhelm a server, website, or network by flooding it with traffic, typically from a botnet—a group of numerous distributed systems that a cybercriminal seizes control of through malware and remote-controlled operations. The global frequency of DDoS attacks surged amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasingly, assailants are merging DDoS attacks with ransomware assaults, or simply extorting the target by threatening to initiate DDoS attacks unless a ransom is paid.

The below best practices and technologies can help your organization implement strong cybersecurity, reducing vulnerability to cyberattacks and protecting critical information systems without intruding on the user or customer experience.

• Security Awareness Training

Security awareness training helps users understand how seemingly harmless actions, such as using the same simple password for multiple log-ins or oversharing on social media, increase their own or their organization’s risk of attack. This training, combined with well-thought-out data security policies, can help employees protect sensitive personal and organizational data, as well as recognize and avoid phishing and malware attacks.

• Identity And Access Management

Identity and access management (IAM) involves defining user roles and access privileges, as well as the conditions for granting or denying those privileges. IAM technologies include multi-factor authentication, which requires an additional credential besides a password.

Username, password, and adaptive authentication require more credentials depending on context.

• Attack Surface Management

ASM involves continuously identifying, analyzing, and mitigating an organization's cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Unlike other cyber defense disciplines, ASM is conducted from a hacker's perspective, identifying targets and assessing risks from an attacker's standpoint.

• Threat Detection, Prevention, and Response

Organizations depend on analytics and AI-driven tools to detect and address potential or ongoing attacks as it is not feasible to prevent all cyberattacks. These tools may include security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), and endpoint detection and response (EDR). Generally, these tools are utilized within a structured incident response strategy.

• Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery capabilities often play a key role in maintaining business continuity in the event of a cyberattack. For example, the ability to fail over to a backup that is hosted in a remote location can enable a business to resume operations quickly following a ransomware attack (and sometimes without paying a ransom).

This information forms the basics of cybersecurity, and although it's a vast field, we cover the major aspects of that. Tech Superior Consulting offers expert IT consulting and web development services to safeguard your digital assets. Let us guide you through the challenges of cybersecurity. Contact us to explore how we can address your specific IT needs.