Learn the reasons why is information security important to businesses.
Why is information security important?
Information security is the protection of information from unauthorized access and improper use.
Also, it involves protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.
What are the threats to information security?
The most common threats to information security are as follows:
Human Error:
Human error is a major source of data breaches and attacks. It can be exploited by hackers in the form of social engineering, accidental leakage of sensitive information, and exploitation of privileges.
Hardware malfunction:
Hardware malfunction is another common reason for data breaches. In some cases, it is due to faulty network or hardware configuration. But often it is due to software flaws such as buffer overflow attacks or other malicious code attacks.
Software Vulnerabilities:
Software Vulnerabilities are the most frequent cause of data breaches in organizations. These vulnerabilities can be either intentional or unintentional. Also, it can be exploited by hackers to gain access to sensitive information.
Malware:
Cybercriminals often use malware to steal data or to cause damage to computers and networks. Some examples of malware are computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, and adware, for instance.
Social Engineering:
Social engineering is a common form of attack on information security where people are tricked into providing confidential information about a company for the benefit of hackers. In addition, it involves tricking employees into revealing confidential information like passwords or account details through various means like phishing, vishing, smishing, impersonation, etc.
Organizational security policy violation:
Organizational security policies can be either too complicated to understand. Or perhaps, simply not implemented properly in the organization. Which leads to violations of security policies by employees. This can easily lead to data breaches if not checked at the right time.
Physical Security Threats:
Physical security threats include theft of hardware or software from offices as well as from employee’s homes or while traveling for business purposes. Stolen hard drives with sensitive data on them are also a major source of data breaches.
External Threats:
External threats happen when an organization connects its corporate network with the internet without proper precautions against cyber attacks. Hackers often scan for vulnerable websites and servers which are on the internet and then exploit vulnerabilities in these systems to gain access and spread malware on them and other connected systems as well.
How can we protect against threats?
The various ways in which we can protect our organization from these threats are as follows:
Use of strong passwords:
You should use strong passwords for accessing sensitive information. Also, regularly change passwords to make it impossible for hackers to guess them. Do not share passwords with anyone else. Also, do not write them down; and they should not be the same from one website to another.
Password management software:
Password management software is a useful tool because it helps in keeping track of all the various passwords that you are using across the internet and also helps you to generate strong passwords for every website that you sign up on.
Two-factor authentication:
Two-factor authentication is an effective method of protecting your account from hackers. Moreover, it involves the use of two different types of identification for accessing your account. One is the username and the other is a unique code.
Virus protection software:
Use virus protection software to protect your computer from viruses, Trojans, worms, etc. This type of software regularly scans for new threats and notifies you if any infection is infecting your computer.
Regular backup of data:
It is important to have regular backups of your data so that in case a data breach occurs due to hardware malfunction or human error, you do not lose any data irrevocably.
Conclusion
Information security is the protection of information from unauthorized access and improper use. You can protect against cyberattacks by using strong passwords, password management software, two-factor authentication, virus protection software, and regular backups of data.
