Hello World,
Below is my first post. I want to dedicate this blog to everyone, regardless of your profession, age, gender, or the level of expertise you have in the field. There are 4 million cybersecurity professionals in the world, that means 99,95% of human population have some or little or no knowledge about cybersecurity and why it’s important in our daily lives. I believe that cybersecurity should be accessible to everyone just like an aspirin is.
Cyber, what a fancy word isn’t it. But what exactly does it mean - cyber? What do you see when you hear that word? My first guess is, that it’s Neo from The Matrix movie, flying through the lines of programming code created by the AI to harvest energy from humans - pretty dark isn't it.
But let’s get back to the real world and look it up in the Cambridge Dictionary - “involving, using or relating to computers, especially the internet”. So, why don’t you take a look around, and count all the things that are somehow connected to the internet. In 2021 there were around 25 billion devices connected to the internet, that’s almost 4 times more than people living in the world (Yes, I’m counting the 6 on the ISS). Now look around once again, take a look at your Roomba, or your brand new Thermomix, heck just look at your toothbrush that can connect to your smartphone and send your brushing habits to the internet. So yeah, Matrix is a pretty good guess but I think we’re not there yet.
I believe we can honestly say that cyber became part of the world we live in, our culture and for some, literally, part of us. So there goes the question what exactly is Cybersecurity if we all live in a world of cyber?
Back in the days, not so far ago, we lived in a world where, if you lived up to the age of 47 you were considered lucky (in 1920’s to be exact). People didn’t have access to healthcare, drinking water or even a roof over their heads. As the world progressed all of these things became publicly available and look at us now living up to our 70’s. I’m 37 (at the time of writing) and I’m not even considered middle-aged yet.
But how all of this come back to cybersecurity - you might ask. Let me quickly explain. The more we learn about our bodies and diseases the more precautions we can take to avoid getting sick and if we do get sick, we can treat a lot of diseases which 50 years could probably kill us. 15 years ago, if you had a fever you would probably visit a doctor, get a prescription and lie down in bed for a week. Nowadays if you feel sick, you don’t even worry about visiting a doctor because you usually know what to take and what to do to get better. Same goes with cyber. The more we learn about cyber and cyberthreats the more we know how to protect ourselves from becoming a victim of a cybercrime. Or do we?
Our laptops and mobile phones are usually secured by the manufacturers, they update our devices to minimize the risks of getting infected, and even if your device does get infected the built-in antivirus will take care of that. The problem is that this only covers the security of your cyber devices. How about cyber you?
Have you received an email saying that your package was hold on the border and you need to pay 5 euro to clear the customs? Maybe you received a text message with a link to pay an overdue energy bill. Did your bank call you saying that someone tried to take a loan on your behalf, and they need you to download an app on your smartphone? All of these are, what we call social engineering attacks, and yes these are all cyber. That’s because we all are part of the cyber, and it’s pretty hard just to simply disconnect from the world.
So, to answer the question what the heck is cybersecurity and why should we care. Cybersecurity for me is the way we interact with the world of cyber. Should you care? Yes, very much yes! Diseases in the cyber world spread much faster than a common flu. There is no expectation for everyone to become cybersecurity experts tomorrow, but it’s our common responsibility to live more securely with cyber. There is no driver’s license for the internet and what’s worse they don’t teach cybersecurity in schools (maybe they should), but as intelligent forms of life (as we think of ourselves) let’s use that intelligence, just like we do with everything else in our lives and make the cyber world a little bit of a nicer place.
Ending note:
I am not sure what exactly is the right number of words I should write in a post to make it interesting, not too long or not too short, but hopefully this little bit gives you an idea how I see the world of cyber and why cybersecurity plays an important role in my life. I am using this platform to share my thoughts and knowledge on the matter. I know that this first post doesn’t give too much depth into the topic, but I promise to bring more. I hope you have enjoyed this bit and will come back for some more because “Security is for everyone”.
