Digital Security

 

Cybersecurity is the body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access. In a computing context, the term security implies cybersecurity. According to a December 2010 analysis of U.S. spending plans, the federal government has allotted over $13 billion annually to cybersecurity over the next five years.

Ensuring cybersecurity requires coordinated efforts throughout an information system. Elements of cybersecurity include:

 

• Application security

• Information security

• Network security

• Disaster recovery / business continuity planning

• End-user education.

 

One of the most problematic elements of cybersecurity is the quickly and constantly evolving nature of security risks. The traditional approach has been to focus most resources on the most crucial system components and protect against the biggest known threats, which necessitated leaving some less important system components undefended and some less dangerous risks not protected against. Such an approach is insufficient in the current environment. Adam Vincent, CTO-public sector at Layer 7 Technologies (a security services provider to federal agencies including Defense Department organizations), describes the problem:

"The threat is advancing quicker than we can keep up with it. The threat changes faster than our idea of the risk. It's no longer possible to write a large white paper about the risk to a particular system. You would be rewriting the white paper constantly..."

To deal with the current environment, advisory organizations are promoting a more proactive and adaptive approach. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), for example, recently issued updated guidelines in its risk assessment framework that recommended a shift toward continuous monitoring and real-time assessments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Identity theft

Identity theft and fraud is one of the most common types of cybercrime. The term Identity Theft is used, when a person purports to be some other person, with a view to creating a fraud for financial gains. When this is done online on the Internet, its is called Online Identity Theft. The most common source to steal identity information of others, are data breaches affecting government or federal websites. It can be data breaches of private websites too, that contain important information such as – credit card information, address, email ID’s, etc.

Go here to learn how you can prevent Online Identity Thefts and protect yourself

Ransomware

This is one of the detestable malware-based attacks. Ransomware enters your computer network and encrypts your files using public-key encryption, and unlike other malware this encryption key remains on the hacker’s server. Attacked users are then asked to pay huge ransoms to receive this private key.

This post will lay down some ground rules that can help you prevent ransomware.

DDoS attacks

DDoS attacks are used to make an online service unavailable and bring it down, by bombarding or overwhelming it with traffic from multiple locations and sources. Large networks of infected computers, called Botnets are developed by planting malware on the victim computers. The idea is normally to draw attention to the DDOS attack, and allow the hacker to hack into a system. Extortion and blackmail could be the other motivations.

This post talks of DDoS and protection & prevention methods.

Botnets

Botnets are networks of compromised computers, controlled by remote attackers in order to perform such illicit tasks as sending spam or attacking other computers.  Computer Bots can also be used act like malware and carry out malicious tasks. Then can be used to assemble a network of computers and then compromise them.

There are some Botnet Removal Tools that can help you detect and remove Botnets.

Spam and Phishing

Spamming and phishing are two very common forms of cybercrimes. There is not much you can do to control them. Spam is basically unwanted emails and messages. They use Spambots. Phishing is a method where cyber criminals offer a bait so that you take it and give out the information they want. The bait can be in form of a business proposal, announcement of a lottery to which you never subscribed, and anything that promises you money for nothing or a small favor. There are online loans companies too, making claims that you can get insecure loans irrespective of your location. Doing business with such claims, you are sure to suffer both financially and mentally. Phishing has its variants too – notably among them are Tabnabbing, Tabjacking. and Vishing and Smishing.

Such spamming and phishing attempts are mostly emails sent by random people whom you did not ever hear of. You should stay away from any such offers especially when you feel that the offer is too good. The US Cybercrime Center says – do not get into any kind of agreements that promise something too good to be true. In most cases, they are fake offers aiming to get your information and to get your money directly or indirectly.

Read our article to know what is Phishing and how to detect Phishing attempts.

Social Engineering

Social engineering is a method where the cyber criminals make a direct contact with you using emails or phones – mostly the latter. They try to gain your confidence and once they succeed at it, they get the information they need. This information can be about you, your money, your company where you work or anything that can be of interest to the cyber criminals.