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Cyber Security

What is Cyber Security?

Cyber security refers to the security of any device with a digital element to it. Such as a company’s computer system, or a phone. The term security covers protection from theft or damage to the systems hardware, software or electronic data, as well as protection from disruption or misdirection from the services that those systems within the company provide.

How has it evolved?

Cyber security has evolved greatly since its creation, when computers were first created the technology to protect the information was not sophisticated, 1 level of protection was used such as a password. However, now there are multiple layers of authentication to protect sensitive data, such as unique logins to a computer, bio-metric authentication (retinal scanning & finger prints), as well as using a code send to a 2nd device of yours to validate your identity (this is used on various email and social media platforms).

Attacks are becoming for sophisticated, one of the first major cyber security attacks was “the Morris worm” which happened in 1988, this was the first time a worm had been used, the self-replicating worm abused a weakness in the UNIX 1 system which slowed down computers to the point of being unusable. Since this attack, the attackers have evolved, they are able to hide the host machines identity, they can do this by connecting to a different network session, or connecting through the TOR network, hiding the machines actual location.

What challenges face Cyber Security?

Human challenges

One of the challenges facing Cyber Security, is human threats. Human threats can come in the form of launching a denial of service attack on the system. This type of attack would block the system from accepting anyone on it. It is done by flooding the system with too many requests for it to handle, thus crippling the system and not allowing anyone on.

Another big threat is Trojans, Malware, Ransomware, Worms, Virus’s & Spyware. All of these are big threats to a system and can be launched on the computer just from someone who has access to the system, opening an attachment on an email, or plugging in a USB drive that they found. These are all challenges to a system as they can stop the system from working entirely by holding all data in an encrypted state until money is paid (ransomware), log all data and discreetly pull it off the systems (Spyware),

IOT devices vs Cyber Security

The main concern with IOT devices such as Alexa & the Google Home devices, is when are they listening, and who has access to that data. The Amazon Echo & Echo dot answer to the name of Alexa and will play music and answer simple questions on voice command. It also records what you say and sends that recording to a server. However, while it is meant to online respond to “Alexa….” They do have a habit of turning on and speaking (thus recording speech) from radio or TV if it deems something to sound similar to “Alexa”.

Many IOT devices are built with no security at all, If the device is discoverable on the internet, and it’s connected to the rest of the network, it’s an easy to use gateway for attackers. From here attackers could gain access to sensitive information, such as turning on the home assistant’s speech recording functions and listening in on conversations you are having. If an attacker could use your home assistant as a weak spot to gain access to your home network, then they could use that to add spyware to other devices connected to it, such as your computer, and gain highly sensitive data such as your bank details and log in username’s and passwords.

References

https://limn.it/articles/the-morris-worm/

https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-cyber-security

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2017/12/internet-things-iot-security-never/