10 minutes before you fall asleep, your mind begins to ask the weirdest of questions; Why am I alive? How’s the future going to be? Will my smart fridge tell my mother about my chocolate addiction? Well, I hate to break it to you mate but it’s not your fridge, fridges can’t talk. It’s rather your ex-girlfriend seeking revenge, your neighborhood security surveillance of a neighbor, or a hacker! But no worries, there’s a solution for every problem and I’m going to share it with you.

The game’s afoot: Follow my lines, and upon this charge cry chocolate for you, I, and whoever deserves (sorry Shakespeare).

What is IT Security?

IT Security is the practice of defending and protecting your machines, infrastructure, devices, and data against malicious attacks.
 

Why IT Security?

When we talk about the term security, another term comes to mind, Privacy. We all want to keep our data secured, protected, and unseen by unauthorized parties. On a governmental level, breaching the data could lead to a terrorism incident.  Also, we don’t want to lose the data we have. That’s why we tend to invest in Cyber-Security.

Types of Security Threats

Threats in the world of Security are divided into 2 main categories:

1. Unintentional: This threat is caused by a human error (unintentionally) which causes the data to be lost or the infrastructure to crash.
    
2. Intentional: This threat is planned and intentionally causes damage to data and infrastructure. The type of it differs depending on the target. For example, it could either be to obtain or view information that you don’t have authorization to view (i.e., eavesdropping) or to actually damage the data or the infrastructure (i.e., DDos Attack). Usually, attackers use the below methods to achieve their goal:

• Malware: Short for Malicious Software and it’s one of the most common cyber threats. It’s a piece of software that is created to disrupt or damage data and infrastructure. A few examples of malware are Trojans, Viruses, Spyware, Ransomware, Adware, and Botnet.
   
• SQL Injection: This type of attack aims to gain control over sensitive data through malicious SQL statements injected into the database.
   
• Phishing: Targeting a user through sending an email that looks legitimate but is not.
   
• Man in the Middle: This attack aims to intercept communication between 2 parties in order to steal data.
   
• Denial of Service:  This attack overwhelms the network with traffic which causes its shutdown.

I should point out that there are more methods hackers use but these are the main ones.

Protection Against Threats

As we have said earlier, for every problem, there’s a solution. Security Specialists have introduced many ways to protect yourself against such attacks. They have also emphasized the human factor to avoid any unintentional error. With training the personnel on the best practice, what’s left is to integrate the below methods to protect our data:

1. Install Anti-Viruses: Choosing a good anti-virus will ensure that your computer is scanned frequently and threats are detected and either quarantined or deleted. Some examples are Kaspersky, Sophos & Webroot.
    
2. Deploying Firewalls: Firewalls help you control the incoming and outgoing traffic on your network. You can allow, block and restrict ports using Firewalls which ensures your infrastructure remains intact. Fortinet & Sophos firewalls are great examples if you wish to deploy your own.
    
3. Ransomware Protection: Not only you can scan your machine using Ransomware protection software. You can also block infected files from being downloaded which acts as an extra layer of security. Heimdal Security offers a great protection against Ransomware.
    
4. Security Audit: You need to conduct a security audit every 3 months (at least) to verify the integrity of your network and upgrade your security procedures. You also need to identify the weaknesses of your security architecture and work on enhancing it. If you wish to get one of the best Security Audit services, please click here

Verdict

Even since the first security attack in the 1970s, IT specialists have understood that it’s mandatory to be prepared for more attacks. It’s not a single threat we face in the IT world. Multiple factors might affect the integrity of your data. Whether it’s intentional or unintentional (human error), you need to be protected against them all. By integrating security in our systems, we ensure the protection of our data and infrastructure. Yet with our ever-changing field, we need to be at least 2 steps ahead of any threat that might occur and hackers are always leveling their games up, we’ll need continuous upgrading for our security infrastructure.