IT-CRUISERS: Everything IT

In computer networking and cybersecurity, a firewall is a security system that typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted network, such as the Internet, thereby preventing unwanted malicious traffic. It allows or blocks traffic based on a defined set of security rules, and it is usually the first line of defence. In today’s cyberspace characterised by advancements in Artificial Intelligence and increasing cyber threats, humans have become an important component in the security equation and not just the technologies — the firewalls! The concept of a "Human Firewall" Human firewalls simply refer to individuals or employees of an organization who have relevant knowledge and consciousness regarding cyber safety and are consistently building the culture of cybersecurity in both work and personal digital life. These are people within an organisation who follow cyber security best practices and report any data breaches or suspicious online activity th...

Maintaining reliable and secure backups of data and systems is one of the most important functions of any organisational IT team, which also forms a critical component of an organisational IT disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Having reliable backups helps to ensure that a business can quickly recover and continue to operate in the event of any sort of disaster such as failure of active systems, cyber attack, human error or even natural disasters. On an individual level, people make effort to backup their personal data in case of loss of a device and to be able to regain access to their important personal data. This is achieved by simply restoring data from backups on a new device which is usually a seamless process and gets the user up and running, eliminating the pain of loosing important data. The question is what happens when these valuable “backup vaults” become the target for cybercriminals? Why do cybercriminals target backup systems/data, how can organisations and ...

The spate of cyber attacks has significantly remained on the increase, and there are no signs of it slowing down — not with the continued reliance of individuals, small businesses, educational institutions, and of course governments around the world on Cyberspace. This reliance has made cyberspace to generate a vast and unending pool of sensitive data and information which are of very high value, hence making it a gold mine and prime target for cyber criminals to exploit. If we examine this from the perspective of information technology versus the humans who generate, process and store/transmit the information, we can try to determine which aspect is the most vulnerable to the tactics and techniques of the cyber “Bad Actors’’. Over time it has been determined that the weak-link in the chain is the “end-user” side. To a considerable extent, the Information Technology security side has matured over the years and is constantly being developed. Several reports have attributed a very high p...