Cybersecurity is a constant battle, no matter what country. Here in the United States especially, most Americans have more information stored about them online than they actually have in paper! This completely changes the way of security. Other countries also have momentous amounts of information about their government and citizens stored in technology too. Domestically, there are many cybersecurity risks that are present. The government has a lot of information that is highly sought after by other countries to gain intelligence. Knowledge is power, and when it comes to cybersecurity, confidential information has a high price. This means that it is highly valuable to hackers. In April 2017, extremely powerful hacking tools were leaked to the wild that originated from the NSA. These tools were not supposed to be released publicly, and they wreaked havoc once they got into the wrong hands. Also, most Americans bank online, meaning that banking is a cybersecurity risk too. Communications are also a high priority for cybersecurity. However, one of the most important risks to consider is the risk to critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure refers to the things that we oftentimes take for granted. Such things include electricity, water, and waste services. If any of these services is compromised, it can cause very serious complications. For example, if the power grid was hacked, people would have no air, refrigeration, and they could not see at night. Not only can this be an inconvenience, but it can be fatal for certain people. This is not only a domestic concern, however, as the UK and many other nations are seeing a rise in the IoT devices being compromised. IoT refers to the internet of things. These are internet connected devices such as, ring doorbells, nest thermostats, and wireless door locks. Also in the UK, they are seeing a rise in phishing scams, most typically over email. In today’s world, phishing attempts appear to be very real and authentic, but they are far from that when looked at more deeply. Many hackers will actually do research on the victim they are targeting. For example, if a hacker sees on facebook that someone works at Walmart, they may construct an email that looks like it was sent from Walmart directly to the victim. It could contain a message like “Hello, due to an updated policy, please verify your paycheck and direct deposit accounts here”. When the victim fulfills the request, their banking has been compromised. At the end of the day, cybersecurity is worldwide, and the issues are more common than most people think.
https://www.nomios.co.uk/news-blog/top-cybersecurity-threats-2021/