The technological change of the 21st century has seen rapid growth in the innovation and fastest adoption of cloud computing. It is now considered the most ingenious solution that removes the idea of having a data centre by helping businesses meet their needs virtually in the most cost-effective, efficient, and productive way.
In today’s data-driven world, every other company and application collects a significant amount of important data and individual’s personal information such as name, email ID, address, date of birth, ID number, credit card information, and online behaviours, history and much more. Sharing data has become an essential component to many businesses and organisations; it allows the data controller and data subjects to stay connected and collaborate on many things.
As per UK DCMS’s data breaches survey, about 32% of businesses in the UK have faced a form of cybersecurity threat between 2018 and 2019. As a result of these network security vulnerabilities, these businesses incurred costs on lost data and many other damages that totalled £4,180.
Attack vectors are defined as the means or paths by which hackers gain access to computers remotely with malicious intentions such as delivering payloads or carrying out other harmful activities. Some common ones are malware, social engineering, phishing and remote exploits.
In the beginning, social engineering was an art of social science. It is used to change people’s behaviour and make changes in society. It looks at a lot of groups, including government, media, academia and industries. Nevertheless, with the development of technology and people’s concerns about security, social engineering has started to be used. Cyber criminals use it to trick humans by using deceptive techniques or information that disguises their intentions.
The principles of cyber security architecture are indeed similar to IT architecture. Networks are only going to expand, technology is going to evolve, and one constant question on every organisation’s mind is “How to ensure the protection of our assets?”. This concern is further heightened in companies whose services are mainly digitised, accounting for over 60% of UK businesses.
To understand how often vulnerability scanning should be performed, it’s important to delve into the drivers behind this objective. Vulnerability management includes the treatment of risks identified during the vulnerability assessments. This is a vital element of the risk management regime for any organisation. Without making informed choices around risk appetite, an organisation may not get the best out of a vulnerability management programme.
Here is a simple illustration of how the principle of least privilege works. Remember when you installed Whatsapp? You most likely got a prompt asking you to click “Allow” so the app could access your media, run in the background, or manage contacts. In that instance, you were extending privileged access to the application, so it runs effectively for you.
With high-risk vulnerabilities popping up every other week, realising there is no such dream ‘patch everything’ and configuration changes slowly add up to weakening your infrastructure security. Vulnerability management and scanning are core components of a solid cyber security strategy, ensuring a sound risk management process. Vulnerability management helps an organisation keep an eye on their assets, both from asset management and operational security.
Businesses not taking cyber security seriously are undermining how important it is for growth. Cyber security is covers all aspects of protecting our sensitive data held in various forms, such as personally identifiable information (PII), health records, intellectual property, industrial systems, critical infrastructure, governments and military information.
