What is Information Security? Everything You Need to Know

Information security is important in every person’s life, company, business, or parastatal. It is the protection of information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to provide confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

It is also known as “InfoSec” and is responsible for the protection of data in order to keep information safe for themselves, their company, and their clients.

Have you been wondering what information security is? In this article, the principles governing information security would be highlighted.

In addition, you would learn how to use information security and how best to protect your data.

Before you check the table of contents below, you can learn more about Social Security and How it works.

What is Information Security?

Information security, sometimes abbreviated to InfoSec, is a set of practices intended to keep data secure from unauthorized access or alterations.

It covers when it’s being stored and when it’s being transmitted from one machine or physical location to another. Most times, it is also referred to as data security. 

Of recent, due to the digital age, the need to protect everyone’s information would be on the rise.

Information security is designed and implemented to protect the print, electronic, or any other form of confidential, private, and sensitive information or data from unauthorized access, use, misuse, disclosure, destruction, modification, or disruption.

In addition, it enables organizations to protect digital and analog information. InfoSec provides coverage for cryptography, mobile computing, social media, and infrastructure and networks containing private, financial, and corporate information. 

Why do you need Information Security?

There are a lot of reasons why information security is important. Widely, the most popularly known reasons are to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of company information.

Since InfoSec covers many areas, it often involves the implementation of various types of security, including application security, infrastructure security, cryptography, incident response, vulnerability management, and disaster recovery.

Information security is needed for protection against cyberattacks and other unauthorized access and data breaches.

Weak information security can lead to key information being lost or stolen, creating a poor experience for customers.

Also, it can lead to lost business, and reputational harm if a company does not implement sufficient protections over customer data and information security weaknesses are exploited by hackers.

For individuals, information security is important because of-  

Confidentiality

Everyone wants their information to be confidential. Information security prevents unauthorized users from accessing information to protect the privacy of information content. Confidentiality is maintained through access restrictions. 

Integrity

This ensures the authenticity and accuracy of information. Integrity is maintained by restricting permissions for editing or the ability to modify information. 

Availability

This ensures that authorized users can reliably access information. Availability is maintained through continuity of access procedures, backup or duplication of information, and maintenance of hardware and network connections.

Loss of availability can occur when networks are attacked due to natural disasters, or when client devices fail.

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Types of Information Security

For you to fully understand what information security means, you must understand the different types of information security. The different types of information security are-

Application Security

This sort of information security is after the protection of applications and application programming interfaces. It is used to prevent, detect, and correct bugs or other vulnerabilities in your applications. 

Infrastructure Security

Infrastructure security strategies protect infrastructure components, including networks, servers, client devices, mobile devices, and data centers.

The growing connectivity between these, and other infrastructure components, puts information at risk without proper precautions. 

Cloud Security

Cloud security provides similar protections to application and infrastructure security but is focused on cloud or cloud-connected components and information.

This security adds extra protections and tools to focus on the vulnerabilities that come from Internet-facing services and shared environments, such as public clouds.

It also tends to include a focus on centralizing security management and tooling.

This centralization enables security teams to maintain visibility of information and information threats across distributed resources. 

Cryptography

Cryptography uses a practice called encryption to secure information by obscuring the contents. When information is encrypted, it is only accessible to users who have the correct encryption key. If users do not have this key, the information is unintelligible.

Incident response

Incident response is a set of procedures and tools that you can use to identify, investigate, and respond to threats or damaging events.

It eliminates or reduces damage caused to systems due to attacks, natural disasters, system failures, or human error. This damage includes any harm caused to information, such as loss or theft. 

Vulnerability management.

Vulnerability management is a practice meant to reduce inherent risks in an application or system. The idea behind this practice is to discover and patch vulnerabilities before issues are exposed or exploited.

The fewer vulnerabilities a component or system has, the more secure your information and resources are. 

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What are the information security threats?

There are certain factors that constantly threaten information security. Some of these threats are- 

Social engineering.

Social attacks take place when criminals deploy targets into taking certain actions such as skipping security measures or disclosing information in order to gain access to confidential information. 

Third-party exposure.

Companies must be confident that any third-party vendors are handling the information securely and sensitively.

If there are data breaches with a vendor, the main company that owns the consumer relationship is still considered responsible. 

Patch management.

Cyber-attacks will exploit any weakness. Patch management is one area that companies need to stay on top of and make sure to always update to the most recent software releases to reduce vulnerabilities.

Ransomware.

Ransomware attacks infect a network and hold data hostage until a ransom is paid. There can be financial damages and reputational damages from the ransom and lost productivity and data loss from the attack itself. 

Malware

Malware is software that has malicious code for the purpose of causing damage to a company’s software, their data and information, and their ability to do business. 

Overall data vulnerabilities.

Cyber-attacks can take place through any weakness in the system. Some risk factors include outdated equipment, unprotected networks, and human error through a lack of employee training.

Another area of risk can be a lax company device policy, such as letting employees use personal devices for work that may not be properly protected. 

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What are information security measures?

There are certain measures that must be taken both by persons and organizations to ensure that information security is maintained. Some of these measures are- 

  • Technical measures include the hardware and software that protects data. Everything from encryption to firewalls. 
  • Organizational measures include the creation of an internal unit dedicated to information security, along with making InfoSec part of the duties of some staff in every department. 
  • Human measures include providing awareness training for users on proper InfoSec practices. 
  • Physical measures include controlling access to office locations and, especially, data centers.

Who is responsible for information security?

Everyone is responsible for information security. However, some persons have been put in place, specifically for the purpose of information security. First off, information security must start at the top. The “top” is senior management and the “start” is commitment. These people are- 

Senior management.

Senior management must make a commitment to understanding information security in order for information security to be effective.

This can’t be stressed enough. Senior management’s commitment to information security needs to be communicated and understood by all company personnel and third-party partners.

Business unit leaders.

Making money is the primary objective, and protecting the information that drives the business is a secondary and supporting objective. Information security personnel need to understand how the business uses information. Failure to do so can lead to ineffective controls and process obstruction.

Employees.

All employees are responsible for understanding and complying with all information security policies and supporting documentation (guidelines, standards, and procedures).

Employees are responsible for seeking guidance when the security implications of their actions are not well understood. Information security personnel need employees to participate, observe and report.

Third Parties.

Third parties such as contractors and vendors must protect their business information. Information security requirements should be included in contractual agreements.

Your right to audit the third-party’s information security controls should also be included in contracts, whenever possible. The responsibility of the third party is to comply with the language contained in contracts.

Conclusion

In an ideal world, your data should always be kept confidential, in its correct state, and available; in practice, of course, you often need to make choices about which information security principles to emphasize, and that requires assessing your data.

A working information security environment would keep you more confident and aware of your information. 

FAQ

Information can be anything like Your details or we can say your profile on social media, your data in mobile phone, your biometrics, etc. Thus, Information Security spans so many research areas like Cryptography, Mobile Computing, Cyber Forensics, Online Social Media. 

Cybersecurity is crucial for the government and other organizations that directly affect the nation’s and the world’s wellbeing and safety. Everyone needs cybersecurity.

Keep your software up to date. You might get impatient waiting for a software update to finish on your phone or laptop, but it’s worth your time, create strong passwords, back up your data regularly, use antivirus software, use public Wi-Fi with caution.

Information security analyses installation software, such as firewalls, to protect computer networks. Information security analysts plan and carry out security measures to protect an organization’s computer networks and systems. 

The biggest security vulnerability in any organization is its own employees. Whether it’s the result of intentional malfeasance or an accident, most data breaches can be traced back to a person within the organization that was breached. 

References

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