An Inevitable need of Modern Business - Cyber Security

The year was 1972. A researcher called Bob Thomas created a program called the “Creeper”. The creeper left a breadcrumb trail wherever it went and also left a message flashing- “I am a Creeper, catch me if you can”. Subsequently, Ray Thompson who is credited with inventing the email created a program called the “Reaper” which chased the Creeper and deleted it. In a crude rudimentary sense, Creeper was the first cyberattack and Reaper was the first antivirus.

In the 1980s It was still the era of the cold war and the fear of cyber espionage loomed high. As more and more organizations jumped onto the internet bandwagon, data vulnerabilities increased and it became more and more important to safeguard the points where the security could be breached. The concept of antivirus was churned thoroughly in the academic circles, with the elite universities working to create cyber protection software mainly for defense projects. The first commercial antivirus was released in 1987. In the nineties, the usage of the internet proliferated greatly and it just increased the scope of attack for cyber offenders.

Since then, it has been a cat and mouse chase between cybersecurity programs and malicious software. Cyber attackers have got more and more innovative these years. Some of the famous web-based attacking methods employed by them are-

1.?Injection Attacks- Data injected to manipulate back-end security and pilfer information

2.?Session Hijacking- Attacking a user session over a protected network through cookies

3.?Phishing- Masquerading a trusted site to steal sensitive data such as passwords

4.?Brute force attack- a large number of trial-and-error guesses to validate sensitive data

5.?Other system-based attacks- Viruses, Worm, Trojan horses, Backdoor, and Bots

In recent years the digital world has been fraught with newer kinds of attacks such as-

Ransomware- where files remain locked and encrypted till a ransom is paid, Wiper – wipes out data and is intended to cause chaos and damage, Spyware- it monitors the workings of a computer and collects information, sometimes even triggering the webcam and microphone into recording mode, Adware- Spams with unsolicited advertisement as a front and collects information without consent, DDOS- Where bots are hacked and made to disrupt and deny critical services.

Every week a new high-profile cybercrime is getting reported. Organizations irrespective of their digital transformation maturity should treat Cybersecurity as a top priority. The demand for competent cyber security professionals is going to be on the rise in the years to come. It is also foreseen that Artificial Intelligence is going to get integrated with Cybersecurity technologies to come up with enhanced solutions.

We are living in a world that is going to get more and more densely networked in the years ahead. The majority of our sensitive information is going to be there on the cloud, more vulnerable than ever before and therefore Cybersecurity is no longer an option to be put on the back burner. Organizations must do what it takes to safeguard their information fiercely from all the digital gatecrashers and trojan horses. Start building your Fort Knox where the future is- in the cloud.?

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