What is Computer Security? Introduction to Computer Security
Computer Security in other words Cybersecurity is becoming inevitable for today’s life as the fastest growing network and technology users around the world that leads to a huge amount of security threats. These security threats are happening for individual and large enterprises and make the life or business flow a harder one. The knowledge of security standard principles is a must for the learners to protect the world from vulnerabilities and cyberattacks. In this blog, we present the basic understanding of computer security with the following key topics.
- The Inception of Computer Security
- Types of Computer Security Threats
- Significance of Computer Security
- Best Practices of Computer Security
The inception of Computer Security
The protection of computer systems against harm, data theft, and unauthorized access is known as computer security or cybersecurity. Computer hardware elements can be protected from attacks with the use of alarms, password locks, or serial number protection. But the protection of information and system can be achieved only through complex mechanisms that are strong enough to fight against data theft, vandalism, fraud, and invasion of privacy. Theft of data is a threat against military information and other government computers, vandalism means the destruction of data using a computer virus, fraud is channeling the public funds to other accounts, and invasion of privacy is about illegal accessing of medical and financial data from a large database.
There are various types of computer security for individuals and organizations around the world. Following are the popular threats that should have strong protection for data security.
- Information Security is about protecting information from modification, deletion, and other unauthorized accesses.
- Application Security is about protecting applications through developing security features against cyber threats like SQL Injection, Data Breaches, or DoS attacks.
- Computer Security is about protecting a standalone machine by updating the system regularly
- Network Security is about securing both software and hardware technologies of the organization.
- Cybersecurity is about protecting computer systems that are involved in the communication of computer systems.
The in-depth knowledge of the distinction between those computer securities is very much important to protect the valuable information of an organization. Computer components such as Hardware which is the physical parts of a computer, Firmware is the permanent software, and software that offers services like operating system, internet browser, and MS word are to be protected with necessary computer security tools and technologies.
Computer Security leans on three major areas such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality is to ensure the information is available only for authorized users, Integrity is for securing information from being modified by unauthorized users, and Availability is to protect information with the usable of authorized users whenever they need it. In simple words, computer security is ensuring the data security from cyberattacks along with the availability for authorized users with security features.
Types of Computer Security Threats
Computer Security Threats are the possibilities of affecting the normal functioning of computer systems and they are increasing as the world is becoming more digital dependant. The following are the various types of computer security threats that are most harmful to computer systems.
Viruses : This is a malicious program that can be loaded into the user’s computer system without even the user’s knowledge and it replicates automatically to affect the files and programs of the user’s PC. The main aim of these computer virus programs is to infect the user’s computer to make them unable to do the proper operations.
Computer Worm : This is software that can copy from one system to another without human interaction and the potential risk of this computer worm is to affect the computer hard disk space to decrease the volume and great speed.
Phishing : This is created for attempting the stealing of sensitive personal or financial information through fraudulent email or instant messages. Phishing is very easy to execute and the user may get encouraged to enter their personal information in such emails.
Botnet : This is a group of computers connected to the internet formed by hackers using a computer virus. In this, an individual computer is called a ‘zombie computer’ and the result of the botnet is the user’s computer to do malicious activities and perform DDoS attacks using bots.
Rootkit : This rootkit is a computer program developed to offer continued privileged access to a user’s computer for hiding an active presence. Once the rootkit is installed in the victim’s computer, the controller of the rootkit will be able to execute files and update the system configuration from remote systems.
Keylogger : This is also known as a Keystroke logger that can track the real-time activities of a user to keep a record of all keystrokes made on the keyboard by that user. It is a very powerful threat that involves stealing people’s login credentials like usernames and passwords for their confidential information.
Apart from these, there are other computer security threats such as spyware, Emotet, malware, ransomware, cryptojacking, formjacking, patch management, cloud vulnerabilities, scareware, wabbits, bluesnarfing, etc.
Significance of Computer Security
Following are the important aspects to protect the systems with powerful computer security features.
- To protect company assets that include information stored in computer networks as every bit of data is vital and confidential as the physical assets of the organization.
- To ensure the governing requirements and moral responsibilities as they are used to create policies and procedures involved in the security requirements of the organization.
- For the competitive benefit that comes along with financial services and e-commerce the consideration of network security is the primary importance.
- To help for the increasing volume and sophisticated cyber security threats that include targeting phishing scams, data theft, and other vulnerabilities through the network.
Enabling the computer security in organizations helps in various ways such as the knowledge about different types of cyberattacks to prevent the business flow, the understanding of increased cybercrimes, to know the vulnerable tech users, protected cloud storage practices, and assuring the credibility of the organization as it saves millions of dollars from cyberattacks that harm the business through the dark web.
Best Practices of Computer Security
Computer Security is to be practiced regularly with the in-depth knowledge of cyberattacks and the following are the few practices that are recommended by specialists to help the organization with data protection.
- Ensure that your computer systems, devices, drivers, and applications are updated as per the latest version of the operating system.
- Ensure that your computer systems are secured using up-to-date Anti-virus Software Applications and Anti-Spyware Software Updates
- Recommend all the users of the organization to use strong, ambiguous Password Protection Devices that can’t be easily predicted by hackers.
- Ensure the systems are updated with Latest Updates and Patches for all the applications and software tools along with strong Firewall Security Facilities for the physical elements.
- Never open the unknown and unsolicited attachments or links that come with mail or files that are transferred from other devices.
- Don’t ever try to transfer confidential information like passwords through typical wireless connections as they are easy for hackers to capture.
- Always ensure that you are searching with ‘HTTPS’ in the URL before entering your financial or personal data in the web forms. HTTPS means secured websites that are guaranteed for data protection.
- Avoid sending unencrypted mail or instant messages to the team when transferring confidential or highly secured information.
Conclusion
Computer Security is the need of the hour that helps in protecting the computers, information, and confidential data from unauthorized access or hacking. Computer Security threats are coming up with new and updated forms and there are numerous types of computer security threats that should be meticulously avoided for protecting the confidential data of an organization. The complete knowledge of computer security helps the learners to obtain jobs in cybersecurity domains. Learn Cybersecurity Training in Chennai at Softlogic to gain a comprehensive understanding of computer security and act wisely to protect the business flow of organizations through satisfying hands-on exposure.
