In a world where almost everything is connected to the internet, cyber insecurity is one of the major concerns. Recently, financial attacks, identity threats, and privacy leaks have been reported, and improved security gateways and cyber awareness programs could bring more resistance to these incidents. The following essay will discuss those in detail.
Financial losses are the major consequence of cyber threats, and online banking systems are among favourites to attack. Banking details like usernames, passwords, and account numbers are stolen through emails or malicious software, and accounts will be hacked to transfer money. Stock market and crypto market are also subject to the similar situation. Moreover, online attackers stole individual’s personal identities and use them for the criminals. For instance, the stolen details can be used to create false accounts and apply online loans; therefore, the person who belongs the real identity has to face all the consequences. Proving innocence for such incidents can be time consuming and expensive. Apart from these, privacy threats are also a major problem. Hackers access private photographs, videos, emails, or other work documents and publish them online or ask for money in return. Some images are edited using artificial intelligent tools and used for sexual harassments. Further, large scale company’s internal data leakages may lose millions of their profit.
Several measures are needed to address these risks. First, internet users should be educated about common threats and attacks from hackers, and encouraged them to use strong passwords, multi-factor authentications and bio matrices like face or finger prints as much as possible to secure accounts. Moreover, school and workplaces can make awareness sessions about Trojan software, harmful links and websites. Moreover, IT sections can improve their firewall security to ban unauthorised logging attempts.
In conclusion, poor security can cause loss of wealth, privacy, reputations and identity; however, appropriate technical instructions and user education can collectively make the internet safer.