Cyber security in digital age

Ever since the evolution of digital technology, a new trend has been developed i.e digital storage of data and digital payment transactions.

With the innovation of the digital technology, more and more persons and companies are placing emphasis on the digital storage of data rather than manually preserving huge chunk of hard copies of data.

There is also upsurge in the digital payment transactions in recent years, as it has emerged as an alternative mode of payment to the traditional cash payment procedure and it is very likely to upstage every other mode very soon.

However, this is only one side of the story.

On the other side of the spectrum, cyber hackers are stealing the data of high profile persons, larger corporations and government by intruding and hacking into personal data with the intent to generate easy money without much hassle in a single stroke.

Due to the augmentation of the cyber hacking incidents - Persons, companies’ and nations do not feel that the digitally stored data as safe and secure owing to the vulnerability of such data to the cyber attacks well thought-out by the cyber hackers.

Even though persons, companies’ and nations are employing adequate cybersecurity measures to secure the confidentiality of the digitally stored data from any sort of cyber attack – Cyber hackers are being very innovative in unearthing new cyber hacking techniques to steal the data and money.

It is recognized that cyber hackers are launching cyber attacks to embezzle the money and data by shifting the cyber strategy to covert techniques from attention-grabbing ransomware attacks.

A new cyber hacking technique i.e Crypto jacking is being adopted by the cyber hackers to intrude into digital wallets for stealing the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin – It seems this technique is making the biggest impact in the cyber arena for this year.

As per statistics during the first half of 2018, there is a staggering upsurge of 96% in cryptocurrency mining detections and gigantic 956% increase in cyber detections on comparison with the first half of 2017.

Another astonishing prospect is that cyber hackers are using unusual malware (files, macro, and small file malware) to commit cyber attacks.

To everyone’s surprise, it is detected that the usage of small file malware named "TinyPOS" has registered a jump of 250% in cyber detections on comparison with the second half of 2017.

This proposition substantiates the fact that there is a shift in the momentum of cyber hacking from the usage of quick ransomware to snail paced process of unlawful grabbing of computing power to embezzle digital currency.

In recent years the databases of government institutions, banks and public/private corporations in India are compromised due to the upsurge in the cyber attacks.

It is further observed that the database associated with certain public cloud service providers is vulnerable to the cyber attacks – Data stored with and processed by these service providers also got compromised.

Cyber hackers will constantly focus on innovative cyber hacking techniques, tactics and procedures to infiltrate into the personal database of persons and corporations to theft the data and money.

Any slackness in handling with the personal data by the persons and companies will result in the payment of hefty price in the form of loss of data and money.

It is highly recommended to the persons and corporations to constantly update their digital and technical database/system with the advanced cybersecurity measures to accord high end protection to their personal data from the cyber attacks of the cyber hackers.

To sum up, all of us should be aware of the prominence of cybersecurity in shielding the data from cyber threats - Accordingly, every person and company should employ high end cybersecurity measures to shelter their sensitive/confidential data by reducing the probability of cyber attacks.