Cyber Security Matters

Have you ever heard about the words “online” and “offline”? If you are reading this article, I am sure that you have heard about it because you are reading it either with your phone or computer using internet. In the modern world laden with technology, the word “online” was not only limited to becoming a part of internet but the generic term for being a part of any digital network/space. Being online was becoming a part of our day-to-day life for a variety of reasons such as economics, education, health, entertainment, etc.

In the past time, people only needed to care about their physical and psychological security from real world threats and it was now referred to as offline security. As another form of threats called “online threats” are getting more significant day-by-day, online security became a crucial role for the people.

One might argue that if a person did not use any mobile phone, computer or internet, cybercrimes could not affect him/her. Let me give you an example: Mr. A was a rich elderly person who lived alone in a remote village and he did not use any communication/digital device. One day, he went to a nearby hospital to get medications for his health. The hospital used a database system to keep the records of the patients without using any proper security measures to prevent online attacks. A few weeks later, the database of the hospital was attacked and the personal information of the patients was leaked online. Another few days later, a number of masked robberies came to the house of Mr. A and they have already known that Mr. A was rich and living alone. In this case, Mr. A became a victim of a cybercrime.

When we talked about Cyber Security, there were two main sides: service providers and end users. Service providers included organizations governing the online space, technology companies, network providers and digital security providers. End users could be anyone using any online services. Both sides were equally important in preventing cybercrimes. Service providers continuously tried to find better solutions to ensure the security of the online space but it was the people who, in the end, decided to use them or not.

Cybercrimes could be many forms ranging from inserting Trojans and violating privacy to blackmailing, hijacking the networks, and stealing from others’ bank account. Although preventing them sometimes could be very technical and costly, they could mostly be prevented by changing the behaviors of the users.

Knowing which websites were secure to visit or creating more secure passwords or installing basic antivirus software were a few examples of end users’ behaviors that could prevent most of the cyber-attacks. Although cyber security encompassed large scale efforts by service providers, the basic awareness on cyber security and slight change in the users’ behaviors would have more impact on cyber security frontier.

Because of the nature of cybercrimes, anyone using online space could be susceptible to them and people usually didn’t know when they were affected. Therefore, cyber security is important for anyone and awareness on it is crucial for every end user to prevent escalation of cybercrimes in our day-to-day life. Are you prepared for the online space?