A proper cybersecurity strategy is essential in protecting digital products and systems from attacks. These attacks usually access, delete, alter, extort, or destroy digital products and other essential data. Cybersecurity is also pivotal in preventing attacks meant to disrupt or disable the operations of a device or system.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is a set of methods, technologies, and processes to protect the integrity of networks, servers, software, and data from cyber-attacks. The main objective of a cyber-attack is unauthorized access to classified information and its subsequent copying, modification, or destruction. In addition, attackers can disable the company’s or digital products’ production processes or extort an “eight-figure sum of money.”
Why is Cybersecurity So Important for Digital Products?
Today, information rules the world, and its safety is vital for various digital products to work calmly, smoothly, and without risks and losses. However, most vendors firmly believe that their product is of no interest to anyone, and they are not afraid of a gray wolf in the guise of a hacker even though no one has canceled viruses and phishing.
Virus programs can bring a lot of problems – disrupt the performance of PCs and programs, destroy files using traffic and communication channels for their own purposes and send spam. And malicious modules can take screenshots of the desktop, analyze network and local settings, and much more.
Any digital product vendor, whether financial, commercial, or medical, daily collects, processes, and stores large-scale volumes of sensitive information and personal data of employees, customers, and partners. Basically, all this information is confidential, and its leakage threatens not only the security of the company and product but also its reputation; as a result, the loss of customers and lost profits. For example, for an online store, even a partial loss of reputation and a negative information background lead to the loss of customers and significant risks up to the closure of the business.
Benefits of Cybersecurity in Digital Products
The latest technologies and business models and the high pace of their implementation lead to a renewal of risks. Cybersecurity will come to the rescue to secure high-speed digital change.
Cybersecurity has quite obvious benefits for digital products:
- protection from viruses, malware, DDoS attacks, phishing, and spam;
- protection of sensitive data and networks;
- growing trust from customers and partners;
- protection from unauthorized users;
- protection for end-users.
To protect its digital product, customers, and reputation reliably, a vendor must implement cybersecurity tools, educate responsible specialists, and constantly update security systems as technology changes and develops.
IoT Security for Digital Products
IoT security concerns IT security to protect what is connected to the Internet (Internet of Things devices dedicated to the Smart Home up to devices for Industry 4.0, ranging from Smart Buildings to Smart Cities, from Smart Health to Agri-Food) and can be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The spread of IoT devices brings numerous new issues in terms of security, privacy, and compliance for companies worldwide.
IoT security is used to keep the Internet of Things devices safe and reliable in the consumer and business sectors.
Thanks to IoT security checkup services, it is possible to determine the degree of exposure to cyber-attacks of each IoT device on the network. The test highlights all the security vulnerabilities of the devices, indicating all the solutions to solve them step by step. The test carries out an analysis that also protects you from vulnerabilities.
In itself, the protection of IoT devices is a practice still unknown to those who enjoy the benefits of these technologies and those who design them. Or rather, in this particular phase of the diffusion of IoT technology, security often has a lower priority than market demands. Combining cybersecurity and IoT security is pivotal in securing your digital products from malicious attacks.
Types of Cyber Threats Digital Products Face
Cyber threats are divided into two large groups: external and internal. External – those threats that spread over the network, and internal ones come from their own employees and programs installed on devices. In turn, both groups have many subspecies worth paying attention to.
Viruses – most secretly and imperceptibly penetrate devices. To spread within the system, they copy themselves. If the vendor does not have an effective protective system, they simply cannot be overcome. The virus enters the second you open malicious links. Moreover, this link may be from the most desired partner whose computer was infected with a virus the day before you.
- Spam – Annoying daily e-mails on devices that access a particular digital product with the most enticing “not quite dressed” ladies and advertisements. It not only “uplifts” the mood, consumes traffic, distracts from urgent matters, but also acts as an excellent breeding ground for introducing viruses and Trojan programs. And blame yourself if you opened such a “letter of happiness” and received a destroyed OS, blocked, or destroyed files as a gift.
- Phishing is essentially the same as spam, but with a more presentable and official look, or vice versa, with a compassionate social context. These tricks aim to make you open a file or follow a link to a site containing malicious code. As a rule, the goal of phishing is to steal precious data, such as bank card numbers, passwords, logins, access cards, and credentials.
- DoS/DDoS attacks are multiple false requests that are made to disrupt and block a server, service, or infrastructure as a result of server or network overload. Often they are committed by competitors to sabotage the company’s activities, disrupt the work algorithm, lead to downtime and reduce profits.
- Ransomware is a type of malicious software that extorts money by blocking access to files or a computer system until a ransom is received. It should be noted that there are not so many “honest” attackers, and ransom rarely guarantees file recovery or system performance. Typically, ransomware enters a PC through malicious spam or ads.
Read more: How to Protect Your Business From Cybersecurity Threats