The Importance of Cybersecurity to Protect Modern Companies

Digital transformation now affects all aspects of business, and therefore ensuring cybersecurity is essential to protect companies from modern threats. Every day, organizations face new challenges related to data leaks, cyberattacks, and increasing regulatory requirements. It is important not only to understand the importance of information security but also to know how to stay cybersecurity-compliant and avoid risks in the context of rapidly changing technologies.

What Is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a system for protecting important information from digital hacker attacks by cybercriminals.

It includes measures to eliminate threats to which network systems are exposed. Large companies suffer from them, first of all, not only financially, but also reputationally. The consequences of insufficient security:

• destruction of important data;
• reduction in the efficiency of the company;
• theft of personal data, and intellectual property;
• the need to restore lost information and establish a security system;
• compensation for reputational damage to all those who suffered as a result of cyberattacks.

Why Is Cybersecurity Necessary?

Cybersecurity gives people the confidence that they can freely communicate and work on the Internet, transferring data and fikfap. Two main reasons why cybersecurity is necessary:

1. Company interests. Thanks to security systems, a business can develop calmly even in an unstable external environment. Cybersecurity allows you to reduce the cost of eliminating the consequences of cyberattacks, eliminating new risks. The use of modern cybersecurity solutions allows enterprises to use technologies to increase productivity, without the risk of cyberattacks.

2. Compliance with regulatory requirements. In different countries around the world, many laws and requirements have been adopted for companies of different types of activities. They determine the measures that a company must take to ensure security. Failure to comply with these requirements threatens companies with large fines, in some cases – blocking of Internet resources.

What Is Included In The Scope of Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity technologies are used both on devices of ordinary users and in commercial organizations, at industrial enterprises. They include:

1. Security of critical infrastructure – power grids, control systems, transport networks.
2. Network security – protection of devices and applications connected to the Internet.
3. Cloud security – protection of data, platforms, and online infrastructure.
4. Security of user applications to prevent hacking and code theft.
5. Training users to ensure that company employees comply with basic rules of digital hygiene.
6. Disaster recovery in the event of potential threats.
7. Operational security – preventing information from falling into the wrong hands.
8. Data storage – encryption, lack of access to copies.
9. Mobile security – protection of data stored on mobile devices.
10. Absence of risks from the Internet of Things – devices connected to the network that are used in everyday life or business activities.

Goals of Cyber Criminals

The main goal of cybercriminals is to steal data by hacking it to sell it to competitors or demand a ransom. Most often, government agencies suffer from attacks. Stolen information is sold very easily. Usually, attackers use the following scenarios for this:

• Selling access to the computer networks of a certain enterprise or government agency.
• Withdrawal of money by forging payment orders.
• A cyberattack to steal data and then sell it.
• Blackmailing companies (the attacker demands money for non-disclosure of confidential information they have received).
• Encryption of data and demanding a ransom for access to it.
• Disabling the company’s infrastructure (hacking is often used for this purpose in politics, the military industry, in the field of global security of countries).
• Espionage ordered by competitors, which allows the customer to gain an advantage in the market.

Types of Cybersecurity Threats

The most common cybersecurity threats to both individuals and businesses are:

1. Malware, which contains multiple files that are infected and capable of causing harm to a computer. Primarily, these are viruses that damage computer systems or gain unauthorized access to confidential information, damaging its integrity.
2. Ransomware, which locks important files or processes and extorts money from users to unlock them.
3. Phishing, or social engineering, is an attack on users to obtain confidential information (such as credit card passwords). Phishing usually involves sending emails that look like messages from authoritative sources or advertisements. The main goal of sending phishing emails is to steal confidential data.
4. Insider risks, which include employees and partners, including former ones, who have access rights and the ability to hack corporate records and security systems.
5. A DoS attack is when one system sends malicious requests that make the service impossible. If there are several such senders, these are DDoS attacks. DoS and DDoS attacks are most often carried out on government agencies.
6. Stalker malware is software that is sold as legitimate but is used to spy on users.
7. Supply chain attacks. Fraudsters hack the software of one company and gain access to the programs of another.
8. AI-based attacks occur when artificial intelligence is trained using deliberately false data.
9. Cryptojacking is the theft of device resources for cryptocurrency mining.
10. Man-in-the-Middle is the interception of data during its transmission from the sender to the end recipients.
11. Spoofing is the creation of clones of domains or programs that unsuspecting users mistake for the originals and enter their data into them.
12. Backdoors – penetration into a system to steal stored data. Malicious codes can be embedded in programs, hardware, or files stored on a computer.
13. Typosquatting/cybersquatting – a hacker registers domain names that are very similar to authoritative sites, hoping that the user will make a careless mistake when entering the site name (for example, put a period).
14. SQL injection – exploiting vulnerabilities in applications to obtain data.

There are a large number of attacks, so a company’s compliance with cybersecurity standards is very important to contain the risks.

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Cybersecurity Technologies and Practices

Hackers are constantly creating new attack methods, so businesses are forced to look for new technologies aimed at solving the security problem. The measures taken include:

1. Securing critical infrastructure to ensure public interest.
2. Preventing hackers from hacking computers.
3. Protecting applications running on-premises or in cloud servers.
4. Cloud security in storage, during processing or transmission.
5. Information security of sensitive data.
6. Creating tools for rapid disaster recovery from scratch in case of attacks.

Artificial intelligence is widely used today to improve cybersecurity. Its implementation occurs in three main areas:

1. Detection of threats and new risks.
2. Automatic launch of protection tools.
3. Freeing up human resources through automation.

Conclusion

Ensuring cybersecurity is an integral part of the risk management strategy for modern companies. With the growing number of threats and the complexity of attacks, the importance of reliable data protection and compliance with regulatory requirements cannot be overstated. The company’s work in the direction of staying cybersecurity compliant is mandatory. We recommend paying attention to the company ImmuniWeb, which specializes in providing cybersecurity services.