Cyber crime, a growing phenomenon
Cyber security is about building confidence and security in the use
of ICT. The need of the hour is the awareness of possible threat and
speed of response, Vice President, Certis Integrated Solutions Group,
Singapore, Edwin Lim told a presentation in Colombo last week.
Cyber space is the domain generated by the interconnection between
computers and telecommunication networks to store, modify and exchange
data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures
without regard to physical geography. Therefore, its security largely
depends on the data and ICT security, he said.
 Because of cyber space’s great dependence on informatics and
telecommunications for almost every activity and service, it’s extremely
dangerous to ignore the growing phenomenon of cyber crime and the
increasing number of threats to people’s lives, activities and also
governmental systems. Sources of cyber threats may be unintentional
accidents, or due to vulnerabilities and negligence. However, they can
also be intentional, such as direct attacks on systems.
The objectives of the attackers can be to shut the system down, to
gain access to systems and steal crucial data, to make illegal financial
transfers, disrupt records or to manipulate data and code to introduce
harmful instructions.
Attackers can be recreational hackers, crackpots or terrorists. This
can happen to business entities and interests, and the private and
government sectors. Banking institutions, energy, state agencies,
hospitals, business, education and even social affairs rely heavily on
online presence.
With information flowing through boundaries of different legal
systems connected to different networks around the globe, there is a
growing need to protect personal information, funds and assets and
national security.Thus, cyber security issues are gaining interest in
the public and the private sectors.
Cyber security is an important Business Continuity Planning (BCP) /
Continuity of Operations (COOP) issue, but like everything else in the
BCP/COOP world, unless you get it across the board, cyber security
policies and procedures will be ignored.
Modern security is about rapid response, isolating attacks, acting
quickly, sharing information and awareness at the senior executive and
board level of companies. As the world becomes increasingly
interconnected, Business Continuity/COOP professionals must pay more
attention to the security of their organisation’s connections.
Every week there are headlines about hackers bringing an organisation
to its knees.
The stolen funds, bad publicity and embarrassing revelations are
front page news. The best protection is to implement plans and
procedures.
The best way to demonstrate the need for procedures is to perform a
cyber security audit and implement the recommendations, he said.
- SJ
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