Information is the basic building block of any organization. Our society – and by extension our industries – has evolved to completely rely on extensive collections of data. Like anything valuable, it’s vital to have this information thoroughly protected.
There are three primary reasons why information security is critical:
- Availability So it is always accessible when required.
- Integrity So we can trust it is correct and has not been manipulated.
- Confidentiality So only authorized persons have access to it.
In addition, there is another important reason to secure information – compliance. There are an increasing number of national and international laws and regulatory requirements governing the collection and storage of data.
With the ever-expanding potential for cybercrime and cyberthreats across both IT and operational networks, information security is critical for every organization, large or small.
When it comes to information security the attack surface keeps growing
With an increased dependence on information technology has come an increase in incidents including data breaches, fraud, and the spread of malicious code. Those perpetrating these violations can include members of organized crime, terrorists, individuals, and even foreign governments.
The repercussions can be immense
The loss of data from an organization can have a significant impact on the reputation of the brand involved. The loss of public trust and goodwill is likely to have a considerable financial impact on the company, let alone the risk of fines to the company and its directors.
But that is not the only danger.
A network security breach will cause substantial downtime that will affect operations, not to mention the costs involved in restoring and cleaning up the systems involved. And, if the breach affects operational systems, it’s possible that the attack could result in human injuries or even death.
The global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was USD 4.45 million, a 15% increase over 3 years.
The dangers to information security are many and varied
It’s a challenging task to protect against the increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats that exist, as they can take many forms:
- Malware: which can be used to harm a computer or its user. It includes worms, viruses, trojans and spyware.
- Ransomware: involves locking the victim’s computer system files – usually through encryption – and then demanding payment to unlock them.
- Social engineering: an attack that uses human interaction. It tricks the user into breaking security procedures to gain information that would otherwise be protected.
- Phishing: a subset of social engineering that uses fraudulent email or text messages that appear to be from a reputable source to trick the user into providing sensitive data like login or credit card details.
- Insider threats: including security breaches that can be either malicious or negligent, caused by employees, contractors, or customers.
- Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks: site visits which flood a website, server, or other network resource in order to slow or crash it, preventing legitimate traffic from using it.
- Man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks: that allow the attacker to intercept and relay messages between two parties who believe they’re communicating directly.
- Advanced persistent threats (APTs): which are prolonged targeted attacks where the attacker remains undetected for a long period and can steal data over time.
And this list is far from comprehensive, with other common methods including – botnets, vishing, drive-by-download attacks, exploit kits, SQL injection attacks, malvertising, credential stuffing attacks, cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, business email compromise (BEC) and zero-day exploits.
Network security and information security must remain priorities
In today’s world, cybercrime represents one of the greatest threats to business and commerce that exists. Information security should be at the top of the agenda for any organization, no matter its size.
It’s vital to put in place the procedures and oversight necessary to meet your cybersecurity compliance requirements as well as staying up to date with the changes in technology that affect both the attackers’ modus operandi and your methods for thwarting them.
Without any exaggeration, failure to do so can be catastrophic for your business.
