Cybersecurity: a complete guide with all you need to know

Cybersecurity is a term almost everyone knows about - but only a few can clearly define. This is probably because of its diverse complexities, conflicts and concepts.

In this article, we’ll define what’s cybersecurity, why it is so important and which are the main terms to take into account.

What’s cybersecurity?

You probably heard about the terms of hackers, attacks or cyberattacks.That’s probably - or mostly sure - because attacks happen everyday. How many times have we heard about a company being hacked? Or a public person’s twitter account?

Cyberattacks rise everyday and it’s important to know what exactly does cybersecurity mean. So, let's dive in!

It’s a process created to protect systems, networks, servers and devices from attacks, damages or non authorized accesses.

This means that cybersecurity protects all kinds of information and channels in which attacks could happen, no matter their type or size.

The importance of cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is extremely important, in part because of the huge rise in attacks and data breach in the last couple of years. We can see this in the average cost of data breach in 2020, which was 3.86 millions dollars globally.

This means that the robbery and violation of private data and information has had a huge cost, and it’s only the beginning.

Also, if your business has a clear cybersecurity guideline, it will not only be protected but also assure protection to your clients.

Let’s say you are part of a fintech company. If its system is not protected properly, it can be attacked and their entire data structure could be compromised. Also, your client’s personal information, accounts, passwords and money could be easily stolen.

So the company needs to be protected not only from the inside, but also from the outside. What does this mean? With cybersecurity you’ll have a better reputation, inspire trust and take care of your clients.

Cybersecurity’s three pillars

Even though cybersecurity could be quite technical, everyone should know about its three pillars and their meanings.

Confidentiality: Data should only be available for the authorized parts.

Integrity: Data shouldn’t be held to unauthorized modifications.

Availability: Information should be available in case authorized users need it.

Main concepts

Now that we know how important cybersecurity is, and their main pillars, we should dive into the main concepts.

Threat: Anything that has the potential to disrupt or do harm to an organization. There can be intentional, unintentional and environmental threats.

Vulnerability: The weakness of a tech system that could be used to cause potential damage.

Risk: An event or unknown condition that, if produced, has a negative effect on the project’s objects. It’s the potential for loss, damage or destruction of assets or data when a threat exploits a vulnerability.

Impact: The economical, operational or reputational effect caused by the materialization of the risk.

Control: An action that takes place in order to avoid the materialization of the risk.

Attack: An organized action with the intention of causing damage to a tech system or network.

In conclusion

Cybersecurity is a term that everyone should know about, because anyone could be a potential victim of any kind of cyberattack.

We hope this article gave you a clearer glimpse about cybersecurity as a whole. For more detailed information, you should check out Strike’s perpetual pentesting solution and how it could help your company.