With thousands of malicious attacks every day through the Internet, it is crucial to look for security systems that can safeguard all online applications, websites, and local systems. Cyber security plays a huge role in protecting all the digitally available information. Since most of the data is present online, including some sensitive data, it has become one of the most popular targets of hackers and cyber attackers. This is why the cyber security industry is one of the most profitable IT domains.
This guide will make you familiar with the most significant applications of cyber security. You will be introduced to the uses of cyber security, and the different types of cyber security threats. Make sure that you go through this blog till the end for a thorough understanding of the topic.
If you’re interested in learning in-depth about various cyber security topics such as ethical hacking, CompTIA PenTest+, CompTIA CySA+, etc., you can start learning directly from top-notch engineers here.
What is meant by Cyber Security?
Cybersecurity is the process of defending networks, computers, servers, mobile devices, and personal data against risky online breaches. There is a greater need for cybersecurity expertise because every business organization is looking for cybersecurity specialists to meet its security requirements.
The main goal of cyber security professionals is to prevent online systems and applications from unethical breaches. From cyber security engineers to IT security analysts, there are various types of cyber security professionals who want to keep digital systems up and running.
To conclude, cyber security is the backbone of the whole digital system considering the current rate of cyber breaches.
What are the applications of cyber security?
Even if you install a firewall in your system or avoid tapping on bizarre website pop-ups, running a business organization can prove risky for you. This is why it is important to invest in cyber security professionals. These professionals not only protect your data and systems, they also create strategies to prohibit future malicious attacks.
There are many cyber security applications that can help in safeguarding systems in various industries such as IT, healthcare, retail, operations, inventory management, SaaS, etc. The major uses of cyber security are mentioned below:
1. Endpoint security:
- With the help of endpoint security, you can protect your various devices such as laptops, mobile phones, etc., from various malware, and virus attacks.
- You can do so by installing various anti-virus software such as Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, etc.
2. Securing AI systems and applications:
- As the adoption of AI technologies is increasing, cyber security plays a crucial role in protecting various AI algorithms and models.
- By making use of various encryption techniques, the AI model files that are saved on various systems such as servers, system files, folders, etc. can be protected from getting breached or hacked.
- Cyber security can also be applied to prevent adversarial attacks from happening. These attacks involve feeding malicious input data into the AI system to access sensitive information.
3. Identification and Access Management (IAM):
- By deploying the role-based access control (RBAC), cyber security can help in limiting the access of the available data to the allowed users only.
- This is one of the best cyber security applications as no individual from outside can gain access to sensitive information.
- You can manage data access by using the IAM feature of cyber security.
4. Risk management:
- Risk management and risk analysis are the two main components of the cyber security risk management domain.
- It helps in maintaining data integrity, security, and risk analysis.
- It is made sure that the data is kept secure with the help of data security provided by various available cyber security solutions.
5. Secured data sharing:
- Cyber security solutions also provide secure file sharing by providing encryption to all the transport layers, especially cloud security.
- It is done by enabling continuous compliance risk management.
6. Threat intelligence:
- By intelligently comparing aggregated log data with internal data from asset and configuration management systems, vulnerability scanners, etc. and external data from geolocation databases, etc., third-party cloud security vendors add context to streams of cloud-native logs.
- AI-based anomaly detection approaches are used to identify unknown risks. These dangers are then investigated using forensics to determine their risk profile.
- Real-time notifications on intrusions and breaches of policy reduce the time to recovery; in some circumstances, these alerts even initiate auto-remediation processes.
7. Defending critical systems:
- Wide-area network connections help avoid attacks on massive systems.
- It upholds rigid safety requirements that are industry-standard for users to follow in order to secure the devices using cybersecurity procedures.
- It continuously monitors all programs and assesses the security of the network, servers, and users.
8. Security for physical devices:
- Physical security measures include things like system locks, alarms, intruder detection systems, surveillance systems, and data-destruction systems.
- These make it possible for businesses to protect their IT infrastructure.
9. Disaster recovery and business continuity:
- Organizations can carry on functioning, thanks to data recovery in the event of data loss, attacks, or disasters.
- For example, in case there is some kind of data breach in an organization, the cyber security system already has all the backup of the data, sensitive information, files, folders, etc., on the cloud as well as locally (depending on the service you’re using).
- This application provides concepts or strategies that may assist businesses in managing significant data loss by frequently backing up data and spending money on a system that will allow business operations to continue.
- Thus, this use of cybersecurity ensures ongoing business operations.
10. Network monitoring:
- The practice of continuously scanning a network for signs of dangerous or intrusive behavior is known as network monitoring.
- It frequently works in collaboration with additional security technologies like firewalls, antivirus programs, and IDPs.
- The software allows for either manual or automatic network security monitoring.
- There are many open-source cyber security monitoring tools such as:
- Wireshark,
- Snort,
- OSSEC,
- Nmap,
- OpenVAS (safari uses it), and many more!
11. Continuous investigation:
- Cybersecurity is useful while examining shady circumstances.
- It also aids in maintaining and following rules.
12. Software development security:
- By assisting in the early detection of software vulnerabilities during development, the program helps to ensure that rules and regulations are upheld.
- Software is thoroughly evaluated, scanned, and analyzed using cybersecurity technologies to find any defects, gaps, or vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers or rival companies.
What are the various types of cyber security threats?
It is important for cyber security professionals as well as business organizations to be aware of different types of cyber security threats. The most common types of threats are as follows:
1. Ransomware:
- A form of malicious software known as ransomware encrypts a victim’s files or locks their systems and then demands payment in exchange for access.
- Attacks using ransomware can cost organizations a lot of money and interrupt their operations.
2. Phishing attacks:
- Phishing, which literally means “fishing,” describes a plan to recover sensitive information from users, such as passwords, financial information, or other private details.
- Phishing attempts frequently pretend to be from a reliable source, such as a bank website or email.
- Hackers frequently employ phishing emails or links to trick victims into disclosing their login information or other private data.
- Attacks using phishing are regularly utilized to make money.
- These attacks often come in the form of an email that appears to come from a legitimate source, such as a bank or credit card company.
3. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack:
- The attacker launches a Denial-of-Service (DoS) assault, such as a TCP SYN flood attack, by infecting numerous target users with malware. This is known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
- A botnet is the collective name for the infected computers.
4. Man in the Middle (MITM) attack:
- Man in the Middle (MITM) attacks are among the most frequent kinds of security breaches.
- If you’ve ever wondered how hackers take over computers, steal personal data, or disrupt businesses, man-in-the-middle attacks are the recipe.
- If your email conversation is being forwarded to a third party, like Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, it would be an example of a man-in-the-middle attack.
5. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs):
- PTs are highly organized cyberattacks that target specific organizations for surveillance, data theft, or disruption and are carried out by well-funded threat actors or nation-state groups.
- APTs often use cutting-edge methods and strategies to avoid detection and keep a constant presence inside a target’s network.
6. Internet of Things (IoT) security:
- IoT devices and other linked technologies are becoming more widely used, which has increased the attack surface for cybercriminals.
- Due to poor security procedures, IoT devices are frequently vulnerable to cyber intrusions, posing new risks to businesses and consumers.
7. SQL injection:
- One of the most unsafe categories of network security attacks is SQL injection.
- This kind of attack’s basic idea is that malicious SQL code is injected into the web application.
- After the code is run, the attacker has the ability to harm the network by stealing data, erasing data, altering data, or even erasing the entire database.
- A hacker can quickly locate and insert malicious SQL code into a website using a tool like SQLMAP.
- A hacker who is able to insert harmful code and gain access to a database can do all sorts of harm, including erasing data and stealing money.
Why is cyber security so important? Why do businesses need it?
Over 1.3 million cyber security attacks occurred in the year 2022 alone in India. This was a huge jump in the number of cyber attacks as compared to 2019. As business organizations depend more and more on digital systems to store data and information, cyber-attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated.
This brings in the need of the hour: to deploy cyber security solutions to safeguard organizations from getting breached. Even though companies are moving to the cloud model, it is the individual duty of the organization to protect itself from security breaches and malicious attacks. The cloud vendors do not provide it.
Therefore, it is crucial to look for cyber security services to safeguard business organizations.
Conclusion
That’s all for this blog! A quick recap. We covered what is cybersecurity, the different applications of cyber security, the various types of cyber threats and why is there a need for cyber security solutions.
If you wish to learn more about cyber security, you can visit our official website to explore all the instructor-led courses.
Happy learning!