Cybersecurity Prologue.txt - Understanding Cybersecurity...

Understanding Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is the method of protecting programs, networks, and systems from
digital attacks. Cybersecurity includes technologies, processes, and controls.
Generally, cyberattacks are intended at damaging, modifying, or accessing
sensitive information; disrupting normal business processes; or extracting money
from users.
Office of Personnel Management in the US was hacked in April 2015, resulting in
the theft of approximately 21.5 million personnel records. It is believed to be
one of the most important historic violation.
The data breach compromised on Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like
Social Security Numbers, name, and address.
Malicious programs or Malware are specifically designed to delete, block,
modify, or disrupt the performance of computers and computer networks.
Malwares include Viruses, Worms, Trojans, Spyware, Adware, Ransomware, and
Scareware. Out of these, Viruses and Worms are two of the most familiar
malicious programs.
Virus
Virus is a type of malicious software that can self-replicate and spread to
other systems or hosts, eventually corrupting the systems.
Requires an active operating system/active host program or an already-infected
system to run and cause damage.
Virus spreads easily to other hosts through some means, one of the frequent
means being email attachment.
Worm
Unlike virus, worm is a standalone software that does not need human help/host
program to spread.
Worms can advance and self-replicate within a system using up resources such as
processing and memory.
Enters the system through a vulnerability and attacks information-transport
features/file-transport of the system.
Spyware
Spyware is designed to extract data from its host computer for marketing
purposes. It then transmits that data to a remote system without the user's
knowledge.
Adware
Adware is similar to spyware, but it has been designed for advertising. Such as
in a pop-up screen.
Adware and Spyware are commonly known as Potentially Unwanted Program - PUP.
A potentially unwanted program (PUP) is a software that can be considered as
nonessential, whose implementation can compromise privacy or weaken the
computer's security.
Ransomware
Ransomware holds a system captive and demands a ransom to regain access.
Ransomware restricts access to the computer either by encrypting files on the
hard drive or by displaying messages that are meant to force the user to pay the
malware creator to eliminate the restrictions and retrieve access to their
system.
Scareware
Scareware tricks users by making them believe that their computer has been
infected with a virus and then suggests to download and pay for fake antivirus
software.

Usually, the virus is fictional, and the software is non-functional or malware
itself.