Six Key Elements of Cybersecurity

Touhid | March 8, 2019 | Cyber Security | No Comments

Last Updated on 2 years by Touhid

Cyber security is the process and preventive action of protecting computer systems from malicious attacks or unauthorized access. The elements of cybersecurity are very important for every organization or individuals to protect their sensitive information. In this post, we will explain the six key elements of cybersecurity.

Elements of Cybersecurity

There are six essential key elements of cybersecurity such as application security, information security, network security, disaster recovery plan, operational, and end user security.

Application security
Information Security
Network Security
Disaster Recovery Planning
Operational Security
End User Education

1. Application Security

Application security is the first key elements of cybersecurity which adds security features within applications during development period to prevent from cyber attacks. It protects websites and web-based applications from different types of cyber security threats which exploit vulnerabilities in source code.

A. Application Vulnerabilities

Application threats or vulnerabilities can be SQL injection, Denial of Service attacks (DoS), data encryption, data breaches or other types of threats.

B. Categories of Application Threats

The most common categories of application threats related to software or application are as follows:

Input validation
Authorization
Session management
Parameter tampering
Encryption

C. Application Security Tools

However, there are different types of application security tools such as firewalls, antivirus software, encryption techniques, and web application firewall (WAF) which can help to protect your application software from cyber-attacks and unauthorized access.

2. Information Security

Information security (IS) or InfoSec is the elements of cyber security which refers to the process and methodology for preventing unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of information.

The information can be anything like your personal details, login credentials, network details, or your profile on social media, mobile phone etc.

Main principle of Information Security

There are three main principle of Information Security, commonly known as CIA – Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

A. Confidentiality

Confidentiality is the protection of information which allows authorized users to access sensitive data. It involves any information that is sensitive and should only be shared with a limited number of people.

Following types of information that is considered as confidential:

Name, date of birth, age and address
Contact information
Bank account details
Professional information
Email account details
Social Media Profile
Medial record and
Family information

B. Integrity

Integrity means maintaining the consistency, accuracy, and completeness of information. It involves keeping information from being altered or changed and ensures that data cannot be altered by unauthorized people.

C. Availability

Availability ensures that information and resources are accessible to authorized users. If an attacker is not able to compromise the first two principles, then they may try to execute denial of service (DoS) attack.

This attack would bring down the web server and make the website unavailable to legitimate users due to lack of availability.

3. Network Security

Network security is another elements of IT security which process of preventing and protecting against unauthorized access into computer networks.

It is a set of rules and configurations to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification of a computer network and resources. It includes both hardware and software technologies.

A. Network Security Methods

There are many methods to improve network security and the most common network security components are as follows:

Antivirus Software
Email Security
Firewalls
Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Web Security
Wireless Security
Endpoint Security
Network Access Control (NAC)

B. Network Security Software

There are varieties of software and hardware tools to protect your computer network. For example, firewall is a network security tool which keeps track of network traffic and what’s happening on your networks.

4. Disaster Recovery Planning

A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a business continuity plan and managed procedures that describe how work can be resumed quickly and effectively after a disaster.

A disaster recovery strategy should start at the business level and determine which applications are most important to running the organization activities. In determining a recovery strategy, every organization’s should consider the following issues such as:

Financial Budget
Resources
Technology
Administration
Hardware

When disaster recovery strategies have been developed and approved, then the organization can translate them into disaster recovery plans.

A. Steps of Disaster Recovery Planning

There are 12 steps to help you to prepare a disaster recovery plan which are as follows:

Define scope of the organization assets
Identifying the possible threats and vulnerabilities
Ensure Data Protection
Create a Disaster Recovery Team
Provide training to team members
Establish team members accountability
Create a data recovery plan
Test your data recovery plan
Review regularly
Take back up regularly
Update and Revise Your Plan and
Possible to implement Cloud Backup

B. Types of Disaster Recovery Plans

There are about four types of disaster recovery plans, and according to your business nature you can pick which plan best suits your needs.

Data Center Disaster Recovery
Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery
Virtualization Disaster Recovery
Disaster Recovery as a Service

5. Operational Security

Operational security (OPSEC) is an analytical and risk management elements of cybersecurity. OPSEC identifies the organization’s critical information and develops a protection mechanism to ensure the security of sensitive information.

It is also known as procedural security, which encourages managers to view operations in order to protect sensitive information.

Steps of Operational Security

To develop an effective operations security program, the organization’s OPSEC officers first find out and define the possible threats, and then they will take necessary action.

There are five steps to process the operational security program, which are as follows:

Define the organization sensitive information
Identify the categories of threats
Analyze security holes and vulnerabilities
Assessment of Risks
Implementation of appropriate countermeasures

6. End User Education

End-user education is most the important element of computer security. End users are becoming the largest security risk in any organization because it can happen anytime.

However, the end user has no fault of their own, and mostly due to a lack of awareness and business security policies, procedures and protocols.

A. End User Threats

There are many reasons, that a threat can be created. The end user threats can be created according to following ways:

Using of Social Media
Text Messaging
Apps Download
Use of Email
Password creation and usages

B. End User Security Program

It is better to arrange a cyber security awareness training program on regular basis and should cover the following topics:

Cyber Security and its importance
Different types of Cyber Threats
How to use Internet
Email Phishing and Social Engineering attack
Device Security
Physical Security
Password creation and usages

Conclusion

Cyber security is the process preventive measures for protecting computer systems from cyber threats or unauthorized access. So, the elements of cyber security are very important for us to protect our sensitive information from cyber attacks. Hope the article elements of cybersecurity will be helpful for you.

Six Key Elements of Cybersecurity