Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Eng 102 19
Professor Newport
May 8, 2017
What is cybersecurity? Why is it such an important topic today? Why are many people
not informed on how to protect themselves from cybercrime and dont know how cybersecurity
works? Cybersecurity is all about protecting data through technology. This paper will discuss the
ins and outs of cybersecurity as well as using different ways to define it. Although people say
that we should be grasping at the opportunity to use technology and the internet, cybersecurity
needs to be a topic businesses and citizens should focus on being educated in so they can learn to
limit their digital activity, prevent financial harm, and learn how to protect their data in various
ways.
Introduction to Cybersecurity
Cyber security refers to the body of technologies, processes, and practices designed to
protect networks, devices, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access
(Lord, 2017, para. 1). The early 1990s is when computer scientists first used cyber security to
pick out insecurities that were connected to networked computers; people theoretically realized
that cyber threats can have a great impact on society and realized how important it was.
(NissenBaum & Hansen, 2009, para. 2) Compared to physical security, cyber security occurs
most of the time on computers and the internet while physical security occurs in person. With a
companys physical security, the company would have security guards, body guards, or man-
made barriers such as walls, gates, or barricades. With a companys cybersecurity, they would
have network administrators, information technology consultants, tech support, and more
(Brandwagt, para. 5-10). Both cyber and physical security are like a persons wellbeing. Cyber
security is the emotional health while physical security is the physical health. Having both leads
to a persons healthy wellbeing and having both can also lead to a healthy company.
The term cybersecurity, if it were to be given in detail, can be seen like a king or his
people defending their castle. Another clan of warriors, who would be described as hackers,
would try to sniff around to see if there was any possible way to get inside the castle quietly.
Great cyber security analysts, who can be described as the king and the people, can sometimes
listen the clan of warriors outside trying to break in quietly so the king and his people can
prepare in advance for the attack. The clan of warriors are usually hungry and try to hit the
jackpot by taking over the king and his peoples castle and steal everything they own, which
would be a businesss money, and would ruin the king and his peoples lives. Average citizens
and business owners dont think that a cyber-attack would happen to them, and they think that
using technology is only for making things easier without thinking of any consequences.
technology progresses and future technologies evolve, there are becoming more ways to hack
into companies and average citizens data. As an estimate, the global economy loses around $445
billion each year (Ashford, 2015, para. 2). Businesses should educate every one of their workers
including members higher up the chain. One of the most common reasons that companys data
gets breached is by phishing. Emails, instant messages and even voicemails can be tweaked to
include an attachment that is customized in a way that encourages the unwitting recipient to click
on it unsuspectingly. Once this happens, some part of the computer software that is considered
vulnerable will become exploited by the malicious program (Cybersecurity Zen, 2015, para. 2).
This is probably the most common way for citizens and businesses to get hacked since it targets
vulnerable people such as elderly people who grew up most of their lives without technology and
have no sense of if an email, instant message, or voicemail is a scam or not. This doesnt apply to
just old people, but it applies to everyone who doesnt have basic knowledge of cybercrime.
Cybersecurity is now important more than ever because of the cyber world we live in
today. The ins and outs of cybersecurity wasnt even a thing about 60 years ago and didnt even
exist because we didnt have computers, mobile phones, and other fancy technology. I personally
and security is my major and I am currently taking cybersecurity classes online through a
website while attending college at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. I take a lot of passion
in cybersecurity because in the future I want to be part of the FBI or fight cybercrime through the
military. Age is a factor when it comes to Americans caring about cybersecurity or not. 61%
report feeling extremely or very concerned about the nations cyber security (Korwitts, 2015,
para. 3). It is even worse when it comes to corporate companies in that the rate of caring is even
lower. 27% people are worried about their companys cybersecurity, 28% say that their company
doesnt even require cybersecurity, and 14% people say their company has not checked their
devices using correct security (Korwitts, 2015, para 5). Companies need to get their employers
technology checked as well as provide better cyber education. Employees wont know how to
detect what type of emails, links, or files are scams or not if they are not properly taught how to
detect them.
People need to limit their digital activities to a minimum; just because we can use the
internet or online technology, should we? To minimize the chance of being hacked and having
valuable information stolen or even leaked, people need to do whatever it takes to avoid
conveying their information online or proceed to convey their information as safely as possible.
Some strategies to protect a persons information or hide their identity online can be but are not
limited to, installing HTTPS Everywhere (a google chrome extension), use two-factor
authentication with popular services, and use tape over anything that has a wireless camera to
prevent hackers remotely accessing them, or even taking pictures from them.
Some common cybersecurity terms included in this picture are spyware, update, virus, spam, identity,
firewall, password, internet, phishing, and hacker. This is just a brief list of the main terms used in the
cyber world.
Now that people have learned that they need to keep their digital activities to a minimum, they
can learn information and strategies on how to protect their personal information.
One of the best ways to prevent a hacker from hacking an account is to create a strong
password. People need to use different passwords for each account online such as banking
accounts, emails, social media, and more. 73% of users have the same password for multiple
sites, 33% use the same password every time creating an easy target for breaches and identity
theft (Martins, 2015, para. 5). Passwords should contain as many characters as possible ranging
between lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, and symbols. It gets harder and harder
for hackers to crack a password when the password increases in characters with the most random
combinations of characters possible. Other strategies that can help increase password strength
include eliminating the use of dictionary words, eliminating character patterns, and having
completely unique passwords from other accounts owned by a person (Martins, 2015, para. 13).
Planning on how to protect your personal information and data can lead to someone prevent
getting into a situation where a hacker is in play is key for preventing cybercrimes.
One of the biggest hacks of all time is when Sony Pictures got hacked by a group called
The Guardians of Peace. In the first round of leaks which started on December 1, 2014, they
leaked 47,426 social security numbers in which many belonged to Sony employees, both current
and former employees (RBS, 2014, para. 13). This was a massive security breach that left
everyone in awe. This is just one of the many great hacks ever since technology was developed.
Businesses that are well educated on cyber security and businesses who have a great IT setup
tend to succeed very well since none of their data is stolen or breached. The Guardians of Peace
could have sold these social security numbers anywhere, specifically the black market where
people could use those social security numbers to disguise themselves as somebody else and
The lack of education in average citizen can be proven with hard evidence. One survey
that was taken on cybersecurity from SurveyMonkey proved this. When surveying a vast amount
of people, more than half of the people said that they did not use at least a lowercase letter,
uppercase letter, number, and symbol in their passwords, had a five or less on a cybersecurity
knowledge scale from one to ten, and most responses said that they buy stuff online at least once
a week. This hard evidence leads to the fact that the lack of cybersecurity knowledge is true.
People tend to not think about the possible consequences when using online technology and
digital activity. The sad thing is that someone would think that businesses would tend to be more
knowledgeable about this information and care about it more than a regular citizen, but in fact
many businesses do not even have cybersecurity or they do not even care for it. The result of this
is citizens and businesses lives to be destroyed if a hacker or group of hackers were to breach
attack is where a hacker will attempt to gain access to a password-protected site or area by using
every word in the dictionary as a means of guessing the required input (Munson, para. 1).
This graph represents an analysis of 34,000 MySpace passwords that were recorded from a
A dictionary attack is one of the most popular attacks that a hacker can use. If someone
has the password apples, it can be cracked within a second. If someone has a password of
myfamilyrocks5, it can probably be cracked with a few minutes. If a person is smart enough
and has a password like grizZz492$8Fuse2&, the password would be technically impossible to
crack and would take hundreds of years to crack. The performance of a computer also represents
how long it takes to crack a password using a dictionary attack. If a person has a high-powered
desktop, the weak passwords would be extremely simple to crack. A normal laptop on the other
hand would be slower to crack, even if the password was weak. In the Oxford English
Dictionary, there are about 171,000 words. The average citizen only uses a small amount
of these words which round to between 10 and 40 thousand words total. This means that if a
hacker tried to crack a password one time per second, they could attempt every word in the
Oxford English Dictionary a little less longer than two days (Atwood, 2009, para. 6). This is an
example of how easy it is to crack someones password when a password is weak or even only
moderately strong. Proper education of an individual or firm can prevent these types of things
from happening. The reason strong passwords are suggested is for this very reason. The length
and complexity of the characters in a password leads to how well protected an individual of firm
is. Dictionary attacks are the most formal way of stealing peoples passwords and information,
but few people think about how social engineering and manipulation is another way that hackers
steal from people. Hackers gain the trust of people and they also stalk them through social media
to grab the information they need. They are the social engineers, hackers who exploit the one
weakness that is found in each and every organization: human psychology. Using a variety of
media, including phone calls and social media, these attackers trick people into offering them
access to sensitive information (Bisson, 2015, para. 2). They use strategies such as phishing,
baiting, pretexting, and tailgating behind an employee to get into an unauthorized area in order to
The main reason that hackers decide to hack firms and citizens in the first place is for
their financial gain. As stated earlier in this article, the global economy loses almost $450 billion
advances, which leads to a greater amount of ways and backdoors to get into a company and
citizens data.
This
picture is an example of the total number of cyber incidents and the incident rate there is by industry.
One breach of any citizen or firm can bankrupt that individual or firm and degrade their
money to a minimum. Cybercrime can ruin many peoples lives and can make a successful
business go from successful to a failure as well as having major legal problems in just one day.
Many businesses decide to not invest their time in have a cyber security analysist because they
either dont put effort in, dont have the money to hire a cyber security analysist, or because they
Efficient
For businesses, the use of technology can help the company out to make things more
productive with lower costs. Some reasons that technology can improve business performance is
that it increases finances, gets the job done more effectively, keeps people productive, helps
customer service, and creates a more attractive workplace (Logan, para. 1-5). With the use of
technology, businesses dont have to write everything down on paper such as data and
documents. Instead, businesses are storing their information and private documents online
because it is easier that way. Technology also helps advance a business in various ways. One
example is at retail stores such as Walmart, Kmart, and Target, they have self-check-out where a
person can scan their own items and pay by themselves. This means that the companies can
spend less money on hiring more workers because the technology does the job itself. The
companies are more efficient because they can read off policies from a computer instead of going
back into the store to get a manual and customers can get what they need faster with the use of
point of sale systems. Another example can be online advertising. Whenever someone visits any
website on the internet such as a social media website, there will always be advertisements down
the page which can lead people to click on the link for a companys product, leading to increased
profits for that company. Companies will use this to their advantage in any way possible since
almost every single company is in a competitive market and needs to top their competitors.
Businesses will grasp at the idea of new technological advancements coming forward to not only
beat out their competitors, but to head towards their goal of earning profits for their business.
In this generation, the average citizen uses technology all the time with almost everything
they do. For example, almost every person that is a teenager or older owns a cell phone, laptop,
or other communication device. They use these devices to communicate with each other like
texting and calling to make it easier for communication when people are not physically with each
other. People use their devices to keep track of their bank statements and bills electronically,
store information electronically, play online games, and especially to use their social media.
Technology can help make life easier in many ways such as education. The use of online courses,
special programs supports the idea that people need to use technology more than we already are.
Without technology, there wouldnt be advancements in education and life would be a little more
difficult since most of the things that require technology now would have to be physically done.
highlighters, sticky notes, calculators, and more. Class websites, apps, and internet tools allow
students to manage coursework online instead of with pen and paper, and paper textbooks are
quickly being replaced by e-books (Kole, 2016, para. 4). The book world is transferring from
paper textbooks to electronic books that can be viewed online on a computer, tablet, mobile fun,
and more. Thousands of applications are hitting the market that are either web-based or include
online connections in some form. This provides a great contribution to the academic world and it
furthers students knowledge and makes homework more simplified. Computer simulations
scientific discovery within a realistic setting (de Jong, para 1). The world is so invested in
technology that it would be impossible to ban it. The use of digital technology helps with
communication in various ways. One example is that if a college student was traveling out of
country for a semester to study abroad, they can use online technologies such as Skype to voice
chat the college students family. Credit card technologies also work this way too since that
college students family can put money on their students credit card so they can use it in another
country. It is truly fascinating on what technology do for everyone and to be educated on the
The reason businesses and citizens need to be focusing on cybersecurity more than ever is
because of the time era that we live in with all the technological advances that are occurring.
People need to spend time researching the basics of cybersecurity so it can prevent harm to their
businesses and families because cybercrime is real, and many people do not realize how much it
affects society. Some other reasons that cybersecurity needs to be a topic businesses and citizens
should focus on being educated in that were not discussed in this paper is brute force attacks,
ethical hacking, the dark web, and what causes people to have the urge to attack innocent people
This paper has shown how cybersecurity is an important issue in todays world and how
people can defend themselves as well as know the very basics of cybersecurity. A good idea for
todays education would be to start implementing a one week cybersecurity course for freshman
in high school and freshman in college that is required. That way society can help end the
unnecessary loss of data and help grow back our economy by blocking unethical hackers out.
With the knowledge learned about cybersecurity, our society can come together as one to take a
stand against the people who perform wrongdoing activities throughout the world. Golda Meir,
Prime Minster of Israel once said, Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks
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< http://bit.ly/2qQVBl1>.
Bisson, David. "5 Social Engineering Attacks to Watch Out For." The State of Security. N.p., 23
Brandwagt, John. "Understanding the Different Types of IT Job Titles." Inteqna. N.p., n.d. Web.
Cole, Stacey. "How Has Technology Changed Education?" Ashford University. N.p., 22 Feb.
Cybersecurity Zen. "5 Common Ways Companies Get Hacked." Cybersecurity Zen. N.p., 08
Hansen, Lene, and Nissenbaum, Helen. "Digital Disaster, Cyber Security, and the Copenhagen
<http://svy.mk/2pWuogX>.
Logan, K. "Blog." How Can Technology Improve Business Performance? N.p., n.d. Web. 03
Lord, Nate. "What Is Cyber Security?" Digital Guardian. N.p., 26 Jan. 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.
Martins, Flavio. "3 Quick Facts on Why a Strong Password Policy Matters." DigiCert Blog. N.p.,
Munson, Lee. "What Exactly Is A Dictionary Attack?" Security-FAQs. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May
O'Toole, James. "Simple Tips to Avoid Getting Hacked." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 13
RBS. "A Breakdown and Analysis of the December, 2014 Sony Hack." Risk Based Security.
Survey
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q7J75VP
Pictures
http://bit.ly/2pi6RFu
http://bit.ly/2qcAdu7
http://bit.ly/2pOYKnJ
http://bit.ly/2qQoy1b