HACKING AND CYBER SECURITY.

Few days back "Anonymous (The Black Hat Hackers)" again became active after a black American brutally killed in the USA followed by chaos against police violence, and started claiming to expose more fame names as they have with them all the hidden information against people in power throughout the world. I am sure! billions of people must be eagerly waiting to get grisly information about unethical deeds and deals taking place everywhere, so do I. But the question is- from where do these hackers bring the information or how do they get to see these dark sides? The answer is- through Hacking. Hacking means exploring methods for breaching defences and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network which is no way a something that one should choose to do or get away with it. We all kept listening and using the word "Hacking" but, what does that mean? And how do we work upon to escape or be safe from this?

We are living in a digital era where booking a hotel or a cab, ordering dinner, shopping or anything you name it...is present with us on the taps on our phone or a computer system, we are constantly using the internet and inherently generating data. Have you ever wondered, where does this bulk of data and information go? Well, generally the data is stored on the cloud which is a huge data server or data centre, one can access online, and anything that connects online is prone to cybercrime through hacking. Also,somewhere-sometimes you must have experienced that whatever you were talking about with your friends or anyone started appearing on search suggestions or you made a search on google but similar ads and links started following you on social media, how does this happen? Is it some magic? Obviously not, the answer to these questions can be replied with phenomenons like- Cloud storage, Social listening, Social monitoring, marketing automation etc. which all claim to be safe and protective about the information we shared (mostly unknowingly) with them, but then we all experience a "Compromise of security", and this compromise is nothing but hacking, causing us minor and major damages. So how does hacking happen? Let's understand-

When people, software or codes sheepishly enter into someone's personal space an invasion takes place that steals or misuses personally identifiable information(PII) present in that system, which is unethical as well as damaging. This invasion is not limited to only individuals but also to the large organizations which have suffered multiple cyber breaches in the past, compromising the confidentiality and privacy of data. Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability, commonly known as CIA triad are the three pillars of security for the world of internet and any breach into these causes hacking which is possible due to the vulnerability of a database, with vulnerability it means any shortcoming, a loophole or a loose end present in software, of which the advantage is taken by a hacker. This malicious work is done through numerous methods which are-

1. Direct access attack

2. Multivector polymorphic attack

3. Phishing

4. Eavesdropping

5. Denial of service

6. Tampering

7. Social engineering

8. Spoofing

9. Worms

10. Covert listening devices

11. Keyloggers

12. Wireless mice

13. Malware

14. Man in the middle

15. Drive-by downloads etc.

After looking at all sorts of methods present for a cyber attack and breaches one can think that there must be some sort of mechanism and protocol to protect us from these attacks. Yes, there is a way- Cybersecurity. In the breach of the sheer amount of data the requirement of a mechanism and protocol arises to protect us from cyber crimes and cybersecurity works for the same by developing against the unauthorised data access and other computerised systems where "Information security" - which is designed to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of data works as its subset. Often the invasion of security has happened due to the breach of a fine line between a dangling situation of ethical hacking and hacking but cybersecurity can help to prevent against it by blocking cyber attacks, data breaching, identity threat and also providing aid in risk management. Its functioning is centered towards safeguarding the physical as well as technical aspects of a computer system and becoming live by creating a wholesome network setting. When an organization has a strong set up of network and an effective incident response plan it becomes easy to prevent and mitigate cyber risks by the use of a protective defense mechanism that guards against the loss or theft while also scanning computers for malicious codes. There are three major categories under which we need to seek a safeguard, namely-

1. Unauthorised Modification

2. Unauthorised Detection

3. Unauthorised Access

And initially, these can be prevented by identifying the malware or cyber threat currently going on in an organization second comes the analysis and evaluation of the bots actions, file system and all the affected parties that may have caused the crises supposedly, at the end comes the careful monitoring of the treatment of middlemen while performing web activities or simply using our devices so that the organization can come to its original system as soon as possible. For performing these three actions(Identify, analysis and monitoring) we need to look on the vulnerability, risk and threat covered in a system or application. Cybersecurity ensures the fast reach to the source of the attack, fix the vulnerability and notify all affected parties as it prepares cognitive security tools which are smart and constantly learning for new insights and patterns to isolate and minimise the risk.