Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity About?
It is the on going effort to protect individuals, organizations and governments by protecting networked systems and data from unauthorized use and harm. It is the application of technologies, processes and controls to protect systems, networks, programs, devices and data from cyber attacks.

We have become dependent on the cyber world/technology for almost all areas of modern day living, playing, and working, it is becoming more important that we understand its potential benefits/capabilities, as well as its threats, and ways to mitigate against them. We now all live and work in a participatory cyberspace/digital age. Computers, the data networks that interconnect them, and the services available over the networks make up this cyberspace. We all are now participators in this tech ecosystem!​

The CIA Triad
The CIA triad refers to Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. Together, these three principles form the cornerstone of any organization’s security infrastructure framework.It is so foundational to information security that anytime data is leaked, a system is attacked, a user takes a phishing bait, an account is hijacked, a website is maliciously taken down, or any number of other security incidents occur, you can be certain that one or more of these principles has been violated.

Integrity

In everyday usage, integrity refers to the quality of something being whole or complete. In cybersecurity, integrity is about ensuring that data has not been tampered with and, therefore, can be trusted. It is correct, authentic and reliable.
 

Availability
Systems, applications, and data are of little or no value to an organization and its customers if they are not accessible when authorized users need them. Quite simply, availability means that networks, systems, and applications are up and running. It ensures that authorized users have timely, reliable access to resources when they are needed. Countermeasures to help ensure availability include redundancy (in servers, networks, applications, and services), hardware fault tolerance (for servers and storage), regular software patching and system upgrades, backups, comprehensive disaster recovery plans, and denial-of-service protection solutions.

Social Engineering
This is when an attacker sends a malicious email to an employee pretending to be colleague asking you to click a link, download an attachment or something of that nature. Avoid responding to such request. It is the use of deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential or personal information that may be used for fraudulent purposes.

Email Security -Business Email Compromise (BES)
In a BEC attack, a scammer impersonates a company executive or other trusted party and tries to trick an employee responsible for payments or other financial transactions into wiring money to a bogus account. Attackers usually conduct a fair amount of underground work, studying executive styles and uncovering the organization’s vendors, billing system practices and other information to help mount a convincing attack. BEC fraudsters now have bases of operation across at least 39 counties and are responsible for $26 billion in losses annually —and growing.

Mobile Device Security 

> Avoid using public Wi-Fi hotspot like in hotels, especially when accessing any password-protected sites or where you will enter any personal confidential information (E.g. Internet Banking).

> Protect your devices with a strong password/PIN (6 or 8 Digits recommended minimum) or fingerprint.

> Do not download apps from unknown sources, always use the vendor app stores.

> Activate encryption, Remote wipe, HGPS location (E.g. Find My Phone feature) and Physical security. Read what others are saying about the app in the review section in the app marketplace.

> Do not root (jail-break) your mobile devices.