Cyber Security

The modern world evolves more rapidly than any age previous, we live in an age where everything is digital, and i mean everything. There are TVs, Thermostats and Lights for your home, are just some examples of devices that can be controlled via an app on your mobile phone. Therefore, Cyber Security awareness is essential in protecting yourself online.

The most common cyber attacks take place through individuals who are not very security conscious, or just don't feel that cyber crime will affect them as they don't have anything worth taking. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. There is nothing on Earth more valuable than an individuals identity.

Some of the most commonly used passwords from 2018 are as follows:

123456
Password
Password1
qwerty

Along with this short list of passwords, another common password type is close family relations or pets. The reason they aren't good passwords is because, anybody browsing a social media account could easily find out about the life of the person they were 'stalking' online. People often put pictures of their family with a label underneath depicting what is taking place in the photograph. In extension of that, if the people in the photo also have social media, it is possible to tag them, enabling information to be found out more easily.
When creating passwords for online accounts, they should consist of a mixture of uppercase and lowercase lettering, with punctuation as well. for example; 'Pass@word1.' or better still '.1drOw@ssap'.
*note* these are examples and 'password' in any form should never be used as a password for any system, ever.
The password, naturally, will need to be something that you can remember, as passwords should never, ever be written down. There have been known incidents of people writing down their new password and taping it to their monitor, meaning that anybody could just walk past their desk, type in the login credentials and gain unauthorised access with minimal effort. The threat is doubled if that person happens to have administrator privileges and can make substantial changes to the data on the device.
Nobody is impervious to making mistakes regarding cyber security, there were several incidents in the news a few years ago, where government officials had been carrying laptops on a train journey. The machine in question had unencrypted sensitive data and was accidentally left on the train.
Sensitive information could be anything from login details to a social media account all the way up to details regarding online banking accounts.
It only takes a few details to steal your identity, and the more they know, the easier it is to impersonate you.
A common attack used by hackers is a skill known as 'social engineering'. An example of where this attack would be used; Would be a hacker phoning up a company pretending to be an employee that had misplaced or forgotten their details. If the hacker is able to provide details about the system or has access to account details but not the password, the person on the phone could potentially be tricked into creating an account for them as an employee of the organisation. Whereby the hacker would have successfully gained access to a confidential system without raising any red flags. This would then provide them access to confidential company information which they then maybe able to edit or delete, or possibly copy that information and sell it on elsewhere, giving other companies a leading edge with classified insider knowledge.
Another common attack on organisations come from within the organisation itself. Employees have access to information on secure servers with their login credentials, and it wouldn't flag any systems when they access the data, as they are proper clearance to view that information.
Another type of attack is known as a DOS or Denial-of-Service attack. This is where the attacker seeks to make company resources unavailable by disrupting the services of machines connected to the internet.
A DOS attack can come in several forms, one of which includes; overloading memory buffers preventing the system from carrying out its normal function, effectively shutting it down until the attack ceases.
Another attack includes flooding the target with data packets, again rendering their system unusable until the attack subsides. this type of attack is only possible if the target has lower bandwidth than the perpetrator carrying out the attack.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief overview of Cyber Security. As a reminder, it is also important to change your passwords on a regular basis to keep all of your data secure, and NEVER tell your password to another person, no matter how much you trust them.
If you enjoyed this blog and would like to see any of the topics within it, covered in more detail or would like to know about something else related to cyber security, then please message me and I shall endeavour to cover it in my future blog posts.