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4IR Simplified
John Tseriwa
CRIMINALS are always looking for ways to access personal or companies’ confidential files from the digitally connected ecosystem.
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, which is regarded as the world’s leading researcher and publisher covering the global cyber economy, the cost of cybercrime is predicted to hit US$8 trillion in 2023 and grow to US$10,5 trillion by 2025.
As we celebrated our Independence Day on Tuesday, April 18, the European Commission announced a US$1,2 billion plan to counter growing cybersecurity threats.
Businesses are struggling with cybersecurity issues daily.
A cybersecurity joke reckons that “there are only two types of organisations — those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked”.
The global cybersecurity market is growing exponentially and is expected to reach US$433,6 billion by 2030.
The threats and sophistication of cyber-attacks always seem to be ahead of our awareness and cybersecurity capabilities.
New technological strides guarantee that there is someone also developing a way to compromise the developed technology, thus, cybersecurity becomes a constant cat-and-mouse game.
It is, therefore, imperative for businesses to focus on training their employees to be cyber aware and, at the same time, find ways to mitigate threats and enhance resilience and recovery.
Three key concepts — confidentiality, integrity and availability, also known as the CIA triad — are the backbone to secure systems infrastructure.
In addition, authentication, authorisation and nonrepudiation are other concepts used to enforce the CIA principles properly in an organisation.
These six concepts help security professionals design and implement secure systems.
Cybersecurity focuses on the techniques to protect the integrity of connected systems, programmes and data from attack, damage or unauthorised access.
We will look at security from a physical, logical and technical security point of view, which protects unauthorised access to server rooms, data centres and other sensitive systems.
On the other hand, information security is designed to maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data, and is a subset of cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity enables us to protect sensitive data from being accessed, stolen or damaged.
Organisations and the government must be able to detect, prepare for and respond to cybersecurity incidents.
Against this background, it is, therefore, crucial for organisations to train employees to understand the importance of compliance and to be able to identify suspicious activity.
The good guys are called ethical or white-hat hackers and the bad guys are known as hackers or black-hat hackers.
Black-hat hackers are typical cybercriminals who steal personal information and use it to make a profit.
In the eyes of black-hat hackers, everyone is a potential target — ordinary people, businesses and governments.
If you are considering a career in ethical hacking, you will be classified under white-hat hackers.
They are as skilful as black-hat hackers.
Their main function is to spot security flaws that the bad guys could use to their advantage.
These terms come from old Western movies, where heroes often wore white hats while the bad guys wore black hats.
White-hat hackers fully disclose all the vulnerabilities they find to the company or product owner responsible for fixing the flaws so the issues can be resolved before malicious hackers exploit them.
There are plenty of highly rewarding job opportunities for ethical hackers, who are an integral part of today’s digital business environment.
Network security, endpoint security, cloud security, application security and internet security are some types of cybersecurity.
Each type of cybersecurity focuses on protecting different aspects of internet-connected systems.
Ransomware, malware, phishing/social engineering and insider threats are some of the cyber threats that need to be mitigated.
Ransomware is one of the most crippling cybersecurity threats, where cybercriminals will block access to your files or network, claiming that your entry will be restored if you pay a ransom fee.
The cybercriminals will threaten to delete or publish your sensitive information unless a ransom is paid.
To mitigate the risk of ransomware, you need to have a copy of your data stored somewhere to recover it in the event of a ransomware attack.
A back-up plan is a sure way of restoring your files without losing money.
Businesses must maintain up-to-date software and antivirus solutions and avoid opening suspicious emails or clicking on links from untrusted sources.
To be continued . . .
John Tseriwa is a tech entrepreneur and a digital transformation advocate focusing on delivering business solutions powered by 4IR technologies. He can be contacted at: [email protected] or +263773289802.
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