What Is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is the practice of defending Internet-connected devices, systems and services from hackers and malicious cyberattacks that can lead to data breaches, financial losses and reputation damage. As society becomes more technologically reliant and the volume of sensitive information stored digitally increases, cybersecurity solutions are increasingly critical to ensure business and personal assets remain safe.
From healthcare, retail and education to finance, government, military and the power grid, the average company today collects unprecedented amounts of data on computer systems and in cloud storage. That data can be of great value to cybercriminals looking to steal customer identities or engage in corporate espionage. And the impact of a single breach can be devastating, as illustrated by recent high-profile incidents.
The good news is that robust cybersecurity measures can be put in place to protect the information assets of an organization. From the latest network security tools to specialized end-user training, there are many ways that businesses can help minimize their risk and prevent cyberattacks.
Cybersecurity is a broad field that encompasses several sub-domains to help keep information assets protected online. This includes application, data, cloud and mobile security. As an example, in the field of application security, cyber professionals implement defenses such as secure coding practices, secure cloud architectures and rigorous data input validation to help prevent attacks from exploiting flaws in web or mobile applications. Other cyber security disciplines include unified threat management, which integrates multiple threat detection and response solutions to reduce the number of points of failure in an IT infrastructure.