We live in the Information Age. Every day, we use, produce, transmit, and store digital information. Your medical records, banking information, and insurance information is stored in a server somewhere as digital information. Whenever you use a credit card, or a service like Pay-Pal, you are transferring money using digital information. When you stream media on your device, that media is transferred from a streaming service to your device in the form of digital information. But digital information, like everything else in this world, is vulnerable to threats. Digital information can be corrupted, interrupted, and stolen, with potentially disastrous results. This is why cybersecurity is so important. Much of our lives depend on digital information, so we should be very concerned with keeping it safe.
Cybersecurity affects our personal information
With online shopping so prominent, stealing our personal information has never been easier. Phishing attacks can trick users into giving away personal info. Spyware can make its way onto user’s machines, stealing passwords and credit card numbers through key logging. Hackers can even watching users through their webcam, recording them in their most private spaces. Weak passwords can result in accounts being compromised, and information stolen. All of these attacks can result in violations of privacy, and even identity theft.
Other common ways of stealing info don’t even target the user directly. Often, the servers that store their information are targeted. Databases of users’ passwords, card numbers, and social security numbers can be compromised and sold on the dark web.
Oftentimes these data breaches occur due to lack of proper security. In 2017, credit company Equifax was hacked due to a vulnerability in one of their servers which remained unpatched, despite the fact that a patch was available, welovesecurity reports. The result: millions of people’s Personally Identifying Information (PII), including social security numbers, were stolen by threat actors. The data collected during breaches such as this can be sold on the dark web and used to commit identity theft.
Cybersecurity affects our nation’s critical infrastructure
In 2021, gas giant Colonial Pipeline was hacked, causing widespread gas shortages across the south-east United States. This hack was possible due to basic security practices not being followed: a lack of multi factor authentication, unused accounts not being removed, and leaked passwords, according to GovTech.
The attackers gained access to Colonial’s systems, encrypting them with ransomware, bringing much of the company’s operations to a halt. Security flaws resulted in gas shortages across the country.
It could have happened again.
It was revealed in 2023 that Russian hackers came close to infiltrating a number of US power plants and natural gas facilities with malware shortly after the start of the War in Ukraine. Although this threat has been neutralized, the malware was, in the words of the CEO of cybersecurity firm Dragos, a “state-level, wartime capability” threat.
Cybersecurity affects our national security
If cybersecurity can affect personal finances, and critical infrastructure of our country, how much more important is it for our national security? Nation states like Russia, China, and North Korea have invested huge sums of money into their cyber capabilities. These nations often sponsor hacking groups, or simply work with criminal groups, to target the infrastructure of enemy nations.
The War in Ukraine has shown just how influential cyber is in modern warfare. Cyberattacks, especially ransomware and DDoS attacks, have been used by both Russia and Ukraine to disrupt virtually every sector of the other side’s economy, including energy and financial sectors. The Cyber Peace Institute discusses how both Russia and Ukraine have attacked each other in cyber space over the course of the war.
Cybersecurity affects our entire society
Computers aren’t going anywhere, and neither are the threats that seek to exploit them to hurt us. In fact, the threats are increasing, and so are our vulnerabilities. IoT is integrating digital information into our homes and vehicles, and AI promises to make machines intelligent, yet both of these create a whole new world of security and privacy concerns. Technology is becoming more powerful, and therefore more useful, but also more dangerous.