The Pros And Cons Of Cyber Security

Active defense is a new approach that is being advocated in the United States and abroad. Other terms for active defense include “hacking back” and “striking back”. The concern with active defense are that some of the proposed activities are illegal and could result penalties for private companies and individuals.

The single most important thing we can do to reduce our attack surface is called User awareness and training. Most cyber-attacks come from the area of Social engineering. Social engineering is a combination of anything we do socially that may be used to gain information or exploit a situation based solely on an individual’s actions. These include gathering information from Facebook about someone and where they work for extortion or information gathering. Another would be simply leaving a rather expensive thumb drive on the ground in hopes someone will pick it up bring it into their office and plug it in releasing an automated attack or installing a backdoor for the attacker. With proper user awareness and training most cyber-attacks could be thwarted before they even have a chance to be used.

Cyber-attacks against Sony Pictures brought the vulnerabilities of poor cyber security policies to light. These attacks are nothing new but they appear to be getting more severe. According to James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, “Cyber threats to U.S. national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication, and

America hacking epidemic. Hacking in America is becoming a bigger and bigger problem every day. Hackers/cyber criminals have actually hacked into the Pentagon, State Department, and the White House. They have stolen the personal data of an estimated one half of Americans in attacks on banks and tech companies like yahoo and provided WikiLeaks with the personal emails of democratic party officials, as well as generals and former secretaries of state. Hackers are breaking into illegal and personal information that isn't entitled to them. Being able to get into secret and personal information may not seem as bad as it sounds, but it can get you into serious trouble even just with the little things.

So let us all start at the very beginning. What is the major threat behind cyber terrorism and cyber vandalism? Once you take a major look at the early years, the internet and websites were commonly introduced

It is frightening to think of the number of ways your information can be stolen online. I am concerned about becoming a victim because I have been a victim three times. The first was a store clerk who copied my credit card number while I was making a purchase in a major department store. He then went on an internet shopping spree and bought computer games and online flowers. Fortunately for me he was stupid enough to have the games shipped to his house and the flowers to his mother. The second was when the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in Washington D.C. was hacked and my and my husband’s military and personal information was hacked from their servers. The last was by a fast food clerk in Korea who again decided to copy my credit card

According to “Inside America’s Hacking Epidemic”.”Cyber Attackers have breached the pentagon, State Department, and the White house, stolen the personal data of an estimated one half of Americans in attacks on banks and tech companies like yahoo. But people think that this is the correct way to use technology and a lot of the hackers are getting away with their attacks, we need to have tighter and better security, and according to “Inside America’s Hacking Epidemic”. “The government has hired hundreds of cyber detectives to montair federal agencies for breaches, and more than 6,000 hackers have been recruited to U.S Cyber Command”. Some would say that's more than enough people to get the job done. But in 2014 “They attempted to do at least 79 times- the results would be nightmarish says Tony Lawrence”.

As technology through the internet provides an ease of use for our everyday lives, there is a pitfall for this usage in regards to our personal privacy as there are threats that revolve around the internet each and every day, so what are these threats and how safe and reliable is the internet? So certain threats are as follows;

Internet hackers may sound like a less threat but they can be a big problem to the government and to your financial needs. Hackers can get through the toughest fire wall, “a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication.” They can find out your Facebook password or even your bank account password. To take a step further on what they can do, hackers can break into your online bank account, be able to transfer money to their bank account and leave you bankrupt. The professional hackers usually go after bank companies, transferring the bank’s money over to their account online without anyone knowing, then they can hide their tracks by either framing you or another civilian. Plus, hackers can get into very important documents from the government revealing our secret military tactics, military bases, or natural resources and energy source. Which they can sell or use the information against us to attack each one of these places, and leaving us vulnerable for that one moment to be killed. The government can prevent any of these from happening by overseeing what people look up or see whose is breaking down firewalls. By using key words, NSA can see whose looking up how to bomb the U.S.A. which can lead their computer. If they have a

Since 2010 there have been over 13 major cyber attacks in the US, the FBI categorizes the severity of the attack based on what could possibly be at stake such as information on US citizens or hijacking of critical information . Cyber attacks are classified as crimes committed with the aid of a computer. Cyber crimes are considered felonies, however most people who commit the crimes can usually not be found. Recently there has been an uprising in cyber crimes, in the year 2017 alone 9 minor incidents have occured (minor attacks can consist of malware and internet “trolling” which is a form of cyberbullying) and 4 major crimes have been committed. Most crimes consist of identity theft, robbery, and hijacking private information. Recently programmers have been able to build security systems that can detect a threat almost immediately. With a growing expansion of technology protecting information gets harder day by day. Cyber security is the body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access.

Prevalent to the current trend now is the dependency of the society on Information technology and communication systems. Every aspect of human life is one way or the other linked and controlled by information technology tools. The importance of information technology cannot be over emphasized as its unavailability could lead to a form of disaster or the other. Pivotal infrastructures like finance, healthcare, education and security are driven by information technology. However, information technology and its benefits are accompanied by vulnerabilities and risks that can be exploited by people with the necessary technical skills. Individuals like ‘Hackers’ and ‘Cyber Terrorist’ can cause disruption to information systems, commit financial fraud and also attack computers and networks. These attacks and disruptions could result to violence against people and properties. In some cases, death, serious injuries and severe economic loss could occur as a result of these attacks.

The biggest dangers of the Internet are virus. Viruses are small programs that "infect" computers. Most viruses are made to "steal" and or "destroy" data stored on the infected computer. Viruses, that destroy data, write their code into a file and when that file is accessed it rewrites itself in to more files until the virus corrupters or "infects" a file that the computer needs to run

How is that data and the systems on which that data resides or is transmitted kept secure. A big question. That’s where we need cyber security. Cyber security involves protecting the information and systems we rely on every day—whether at work or school and at home.

Americans are becoming heavily dependent on modern day technology, which produce more vulnerability to cyber-attacks such as security breaches. Cyber security, also known as information technology security, is information security as applied to computers and computer networks. It is designed to protect networks, programs, computers and data from attacks. These attacks can lead to damages or unauthorized access to data. Computer security also includes protection from unplanned events and natural disasters. Cyber security main function is to guard computers, networks, programs and data from unintended or unauthorized access, change or destruction.

The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines cyber security measures taken to protect a computer or computer system (as on the Internet) against unauthorized access or attack Most people think that hackers are just people that want to mess up your computer, but real hackers break into systems because they want to see what they can do, then they might leave a message on the victims computer, but that’s it. So, the computer security people protect from those other hackers that want to mess up peoples computers. The means we take can as individual to protect ourselves in the cyber world is be anyomous on websites, don’t post your personal information ,have virus protection install on your computer, get spy