The Different Types of Cyber Security You Need to Know

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Computers, smartphones and the cloud are part of everyday life for businesses and individuals. We use them widely to gain information, shop, and access services, and we expect companies that hold our data do so securely. With life the way it is now, internet use is becoming the norm for almost everyone, and it is hard to imagine how we ever survived without it. However, turning to the internet offers many solutions and opens up our risk of hacking and data theft.

Is cyber security more important than ever before?

With the dramatic rise in remote and home working accelerated by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are facing additional pressure to ensure that they have excellent data security and cybercrime protection in place.

Widespread internet use has left us with the real threat that businesses are facing risks that the information they store and rely on is open to cyber and malware attacks. Cybercrime costs UK businesses heavily, with around £30bn in damages and lost revenue reported each year, approx. 30% of which is estimated to be from IP theft, businesses must act to intervene and manage attacks efficiently and effectively.

Firewalls and software aren’t enough.

Effective cyber security is as much about your teams in place as your software. The services of a specialist recruitment agency can be invaluable in identifying candidate profiles that are up to the job. This explains why recruitment companies such as Agile Recruit, a leading cloud and data recruitment agency, are seeing a rise in the demand for qualified and intuitive individuals with the skills required to assist businesses with cyber security and information security jobs. They need a strategic approach, expert knowledge, and intuition to handle the ever-growing likelihood that a company will inevitably become a cybercrime target. The only thing within their control is how it affects them. Prevention is better than cure, but with the cyber attackers’ ability growing and seemingly knowing no bounds, having a proactive cyber security team in place is a must to continue the fight against it. Of course, given the nature of the work involved, an employee must trust the honesty and quality of applicants, again something specialist recruitment agencies have the industry knowledge and understanding to identify.

Ways businesses must protect against cyber threats

There are many cyber security concerns for enterprises to employ cyber security staff to manage. Some of the issues concerning today’s companies, which the right cyber security staff can help counteract, include:

Network security – this is the technique of securing computer networks. Businesses must have security programmes that monitor internal networks and all associated infrastructures. They are vulnerable to attacks from targeted attacks and opportunistic malware targeting. Malicious attacks by hackers can wreak havoc, causing businesses losses in both time and money.

Cloud security – Artificial intelligence and the large volumes of data collected see businesses turn to cloud storage to avoid volume storage issues. On-premise environments are prone to cyber malware attacks, which can be somewhat mitigated by securing data within a cloud security platform.

Application security – The wide variety of devices, hardware and software used by businesses today leave them wide open to malware and cyber-attacks, in the same way as networks are vulnerable. Adding application security networks at the development phase will allow due regard and extra protective measures to be added to sensitive areas.

Poor security will leave businesses vulnerable open to attack, which will hinder working for a short period at best. Theft of data and system breaches can cost companies heavily through contract breaches, victim compensation and temporary or complete system loss.