Almost anyone can be targeted by phishing emails, ransomware, or stolen passwords or data breaches. With the online presence of more and more lives, knowledge of cyber threats and how to protect against them has taken on new significance. This is where cyber security comes into play.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cyber Security is the art of protecting computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from harmful cyber attacks. It’s also known as information technology security, computer security or electronic information security.
Cybersecurity can be adapted to many scenarios, such as business, mobile computing, cloud services, connected devices, and digital identities, and can be broken down into several common categories.
- Network security is the process of making a computer network secure against intrusion by a targeted attacker or opportunistic attacker like malware.
- Application security is concerned with ensuring software and devices are free of threats. The application can be compromised and give access to the data it is supposed to secure. Prevention starts early in the design of a program or device, before it has been deployed.
- Information security refers to the safety of information assets while in storage and when being transmitted.
- Operational security also encompasses the procedures and decisions made with regard to managing and securing data assets. This encompasses permissions users are granted when accessing a network, how and where data can be stored or shared.
- Disaster recovery and business continuity are the processes used to cope with the loss of operations and/or data in the event of a cybersecurity incident or other event. DRP’s are the policies to follow when restoring operations and information to regain the same operating capacity as prior to the disaster. Business continuity is the plan the organization resorts to when it is attempting to continue operations without some of its resources.
- The most unpredictable of all cyber security factors is people, and that’s where end-user education comes in. Even those who take no precautions can accidentally infect a secure system with a virus if they do not behave in a secure way. Educating users on how to delete suspicious email attachments, not plug in unknown USB drives, and other lessons are important to the security of any organization.
The Scale of the Cyber Threat
The cyber threat is changing and growing rapidly, and the number of data breaches is increasing annually. IBM’s 20-year-old Cost of a Data Breach Report continually estimates the worldwide cost of a data breach at millions of dollars, including USD 4.44 million in this year’s report.
One mistake can result in the release of valuable data, disruption to critical services, and loss of customer trust in a business. Those consequences are imposed on persons and institutions. Exposed and stolen data can result in fraud and identity theft long after the incident is over, especially for the individuals whose information has been compromised. It could be a regulatory fine, loss of customers, and an investigation that can take months for the organization.
Medical services, retailers, or public entities are generally the most targeted, and malicious criminals are responsible for most incidents. While some are easier to attack due to the financial or medical data they capture, all businesses with networks could be the target for customer information, corporate espionage, or attacks on customers. The issue is global, and governments have found it necessary to guide for organisations to implement effective cyber security practices.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a NIST Cybersecurity Framework in the U.S. The framework suggests using a continuous, real-time monitoring system to help thwart the spread of malicious code and to help identify it early.
The need for system monitoring is noted in the U.K. government’s National Cyber Security Centre’s advice on “10 steps to cyber security”. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) provides regular guidance on how organisations can protect themselves against the latest threats and attacks in the Australian context.
Check out this video about cybersecurity and types of cyber threats and attacks:
Types of Cyber Threats
The threats countered by cybersecurity are threefold:
- Cybercrime includes single actors or groups targeting systems for financial gain or to cause disruption.
- Politically motivated information collection is a large part of cyberattacks.
- Cyberterrorism is an attempt to disrupt electronic systems to instill fear or panic.
Thus, what do bad guys do to take control of computers? These are some of the typical ways to threaten cyber security:
Malware
Malware is short for malicious software. One of the most common cyber threats, malware is software that a cybercriminal or hacker has created to disrupt or damage a legitimate user’s computer. Malware can be a tool for cybercriminals to make money or to perpetrate politically-motivated cyberattacks, and is often distributed through an unsolicited e-mail attachment or a seemingly legit download.
There are several different types of malware, including:
- A program that is capable of reproducing itself and attaching a copy to a clean program and spreading through a computer system, infecting programs with malicious code.
- Trojans: A type of malware that is disguised as legitimate software. The scammer lures the victim to install a Trojan on his or her computer, and then the Trojan damages the computer or gathers information from it.
- Spyware: A program that secretly records what a user does, so that cybercriminals can make use of this information. For instance, spyware may be able to store credit card information.
- Ransomware: Malware that locks down a user’s files and data, with the threat of erasing it unless a ransom is paid.
- Adware: Advertising software that can be employed in the propagation of malware.
- A botnet is a group of computers with malicious software that is used by the cybercriminal to engage in activities on the internet without the owner’s explicit consent.
SQL Injection
An SQL (structured query language) injection is a type of cyberattack used to take control of and steal data from a database. The vulnerabilities in application-based data are exploited by cybercriminals to put malicious code into a database through a malicious SQL statement. This allows them to gain access to sensitive information in the database that is sensitive.
SQL injection has been one of the most popular Web attacks for years because so many Web sites and applications are built on databases, and the vulnerability does not stem from a product, but rather from the way an application is coded.
Phishing
Phishing is a form of cybercrime in which the perpetrators send emails from a seemingly trusted organization in an attempt to trick the recipient into sharing privacy-sensitive information. The messages frequently attempt to trick individuals into disclosing their credit card numbers, passwords, and other personal information that can be used to defraud individuals or gain access to their accounts.
Man-in-the-Middle Attack
A man-in-the-middle attack is a type of cyber attack in which the cybercriminal intercepts the communication between two people and takes the data. For instance, if the network is insecure, an attacker could be able to obtain data from the victim’s device to the network.
Denial-of-Service Attack
Denial of service (DoS) attack: An attack that seeks to deny a computer system the ability to access its resources by flooding the network and servers with traffic. This makes the system unworkable, and an organization unable to conduct essential operations.
The Changing Nature of Cyber Threats
When an old opportunity is eliminated, a new one is discovered by the attackers. The changes below impact home users as well as large organizations, not just security teams.
AI-Driven Attacks
AI is both an attacker’s and a defender’s tool. Attackers leverage it for crafting more believable phishing messages, mimicking legitimate voices, and creating social engineering attacks at minimal extra expense. Since the scam can be customized with information culled from the web, the red flags of misspelled words or logical anomalies are not very effective.
The defenders use the same technology for their benefit. AI-powered security tools are capable of detecting unusual activities, filtering out false alarms, and reacting to incidents more quickly than a human security team. These systems can learn from attacks elsewhere with automation and threat intelligence feeds, allowing defenses to stay current with new attack approaches.
Supply Chain Attacks
A supply chain attack gets to its target indirectly, through a trusted supplier. If a software vendor, update server, or service provider is compromised, then the attacker can deliver malicious code to all customers who depend on the software.
That’s why third-party risk has become a great concern: If an organization can secure its own system well, it can still be vulnerable through one of its partners it relies on. Kaspersky found that almost 3 out of 10 companies were attacked via their supply chain in just one year. But to minimize that exposure, organizations can review the vendors’ security practices and restrict the access that any single vendor can have.
Cloud Security Challenges
The problem of cloud security is when data and applications move out of local systems and into shared cloud systems. Cloud data is often exposed due to misconfigured storage, weak access controls, and lack of multi-factor authentication.
This is compounded by remote and hybrid working, with individuals accessing company resources from home networks and personal devices beyond the office walls. So, protect your cloud apps and storage, and understand what protections are your responsibility and what’s theirs.
Quantum Computing and Encryption
A longer-term question for encryption is whether quantum computing poses a threat. Many of the algorithms used today for encryption are based on a mathematical problem that would not be solved quickly by an ordinary computer, and a computer powerful enough could break some of these encryptions.
Although there are no practical quantum attacks yet, preparations are already underway. NIST released the first post-quantum encryption standards in 2024 and called upon organizations to initiate adoption before quantum computers become commonplace. Part of the urgency stems from the “harvest now, decrypt later” threat: attackers gather encrypted information today to be decrypted when quantum hardware comes up to speed.
End-User Protection
One crucial element of cybersecurity is the protection of end users (or endpoint security). After all, it is often an individual (the end-user) who accidentally uploads malware or another form of cyber threat to their desktop, laptop, or mobile device.
How do these measures serve to safeguard people and systems? Much of it relies on cryptographic protocols that ensure that emails, files and other data deemed sensitive are encrypted, protecting information while it is being transmitted and preventing loss or theft.
Besides this, end-user security software will check computers for fragments of malicious items, quarantine them, and then eliminate them from the computer. Some security programs can even identify and delete malicious code embedded in a device’s boot record and are intended to encrypt or delete data from a computer’s hard drive.
Another part of electronic security procedures is real-time malware detection. Many use heuristic and behavioral analysis to keep track of the behavior of a program and its code to protect against viruses or Trojans that change their shape from one run to the next (polymorphic or metamorphic viruses). Security programs may isolate potentially malicious programs in a virtual “bubble” from a user’s network, and monitor their behavior to better understand what to look for in future infections.
As new threats are discovered and new methods to mitigate them are found, security programs are continually evolving. Employees must be trained to use the end user’s security software properly to get the best return on the investment. Most importantly, it ensures that users are protected from the latest cyber threats by keeping it up and running and updating it regularly.
So What is Cyber-Resilience?
Cyber resilience is the capacity to continue to perform during a cyber attack and to bounce back rapidly. It acknowledges that prevention will not stop all attacks, and provides for detection, response and recovery to incidents.
While cyber security is about ensuring that attackers are kept at bay, cyber resilience assumes no defence is absolute.
It is based on 4 interconnected phases:
- Prevention decreases the frequency of events.
- When an attacker can act without being detected, that time is shortened.
- The damage is included in Response if an incident is detected.
- Recovery restores systems and data to normal, allowing business to get back on track.
This is closely related to continuity planning for a business and an incident response plan that has been tested. For an individual, this may be as easy as taking frequent backups. In cases where ransomware gets your files, you might be able to clean the device and restore a fresh copy instead of paying to obtain them back.
The Importance of People in Cyber Security
There are lots of attacks being prevented by technology, but most are directed at people — they can be rushed, reassured, or frightened into clicking; software just enforces its rules. As Verizon’s 2026 report notes, the human factor is the contributing factor in 62% of breaches, ranging from clicking on a believable email to using the same password on multiple sites, which it has been exposed to approving a bogus reset request.
Some of these begin with social engineering, a tactic used in one out of six breaches, which involves the attacker convincing the person to violate their own security.
That’s where cybersecurity awareness and good cyber hygiene can help. Awareness training is used to make people understand what phishing and social engineering are, to ask questions about requests they’re not expecting, and to report anything unusual – don’t be silent.
Cyber hygiene is an extension of that, and it’s about what we do every day, such as using strong, unique passwords, updating our devices and software, and thinking before clicking links or opening attachments. A few consistent behaviors are able to seal many of the easy entryways that the attackers use, both at work and at home.
Cybersecurity Tips: How to Protect Yourself Against Cyberattacks
What steps can be taken to prevent cyberattacks for businesses and individuals? These are our best cyber safety tips:
- Install software and operating system updates: This helps you get the most recent security patches.
- Anti-virus programs: Security tools such as Kaspersky Premium can detect and eliminate threats, and update programs will keep them effective.
- Have secure passwords: Avoid using easily guessed passwords.
- Don’t open e-mail attachments from strangers: They may contain malicious software.
- Do not click on links in emails from unknown senders or unfamiliar websites: This is a common way that malware is spread.
- Beware of using public WiFi networks that are not secured: Public networks can be susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks.
