What is Digital Security?
Digital security is a unified term that defines the essential resources required to protect online data, assets, and identity. It refers to the various ways of protecting the computer’s data and files from an intruder attack. In other words, it helps you protect all the devices connected to the internet like computers, tablets, and mobile.
The global big data security market size will experience a 12.4 percent growth from 2020 to 2026. It would be worth around $35.3 billion in 2026 from the current $17.5 billion in 2020. It helps organizations detect cyber threats and resolve them proactively.
Why Do We Need Digital Security?
Digital security protects people and their data from online hackers, data theft, and fraud. When the world was reeling under the pandemic, and everyone was forced to work from home, companies had to battle a whole new challenge they never saw coming. A risk-based security analysis found that around 36 billion records were exposed to perpetrators in 2020 and cost over $3.86 million in just the first half of the year. In addition, there was over 267 million data breach in Facebook’s data last year exposing the personal information of people to hackers.
Every day there are thousands of cyber-attacks happening worldwide. You could be a victim of identity theft, lose data, or even a fortune by falling prey to these scams. Companies that do not have an updated security system or firewall are the common victims of these cyber-attacks. Some of the most common digital security attacks are:
Malware:
This is when malicious software like ransomware takes control of your system and disrupts your access to the data. Malware breaches through the firewalls in your system when you click on a link or download an unverified attachment.
Ransomware is a popular type of malware attack. Ransomware forcibly encrypts the user’s data. The attacker then demands a ransom or a massive fee to decrypt the information. There were around 304 million ransomware attacks in 2020 alone, costing companies around $20 billion, a 62 percent increase from the previous year.
Phishing:
Phishing is a social engineering attack where the perpetrator steals user data by sending fraudulent messages, emails, and text messages. A popular example of this is the Nigerian prince scam or the Advance-fee-scam where people receive emails from an alleged Nigerian Prince willing to send you a part of his fortune and requests for your bank account details or a small advance payment which would help them authenticate your account details. When you do so, they might either take the money and disappear or use your bank account information to empty your wealth.
In 2018, Americans lost over $703,000 to the Nigerian Prince Scam, which was first reported in the 1970s. This variation of the Spanish prisoner scam has been fooling people into parting with their money for several decades now. The only way to avoid falling for these scams is to avoid responding to emails from unreliable sources.
Man-in-the-middle attack:
A man-in-the-middle, or MITM, attack is where a hacker positions themselves in the middle of communication. They do this by installing eavesdropping software on your system and collect data while making it seem like a normal information exchange. You can prevent an MITM attack using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which will encrypt the web traffic and limit the hacker’s scope of modifying the data.
Denial-of-service attack:
In this form of a cybersecurity attack, the hacker might shut down a machine or the entire network, making it inaccessible. This could happen when the perpetrator takes control of your server and disrupts the services. It could cost organizations millions of dollars as it disrupts their business. Hackers generally crash the website or flood the webservers, which overwhelm the website and causes it to crash. Either way, the business faces an impact on its website.
DNS Tunneling:
DNS Tunneling is a cyber-attack where the data and queries in the DNS protocols encode other programs or protocols in DNS queries and responses. Hackers gain control over a domain and a server that can act as an authoritative server to execute server-side tunneling and data payload executable programs.
What Are the Different Types of Digital Security?
Perpetrators are coming up with innovative ways to break into the networks. Fortunately, numerous tools in digital security make it possible for you to protect your data. Here are some tools you can use:
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Antivirus Software
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Update Firewall
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Proxies
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Remote Monitoring Services
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Vulnerability Scanner
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Instant Message Encryption Tools
How is Digital Information Security different from Cybersecurity?
In layman’s terms, any mishandling of information by unauthorized personnel is considered a cybercrime. However, experts suggest that data security is different from cybersecurity. Data security is about protecting one’s data, online presence, and online identity. Whereas cybersecurity is about protecting the entire network, computer systems, and other digital components. In other words, digital security protects information, whereas cybersecurity protects the digital infrastructure, networks, and systems. Digital security is a sub-set of cybersecurity.
How to Build a Career in Digital Security?
Data security professionals are in great demand worldwide. The constant increase in cybercrimes is making the role both demanding and rewarding. To start a cybersecurity or digital security career, you will need a degree in computer science or a certificate course in cybersecurity, along with experience in information technology.
Based on your education and experience, you could explore a career as a cybersecurity engineer, cybersecurity architect, or lead software security engineer.
As the discipline is constantly evolving, you need to upskill yourself and be willing to learn. It will help if you connect with recruiters, peers, and industry experts for mentorship on career direction. Networking will help you find the way forward for your career in digital security.
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