Data — The new supreme power

In today’s era, information is directly equivalent to power. One who has data and knows how to utilize it in every possible way is considered to be superior to others. With this increased value for information or data there comes increased demand for data sets with information related to many domains and sub-domains. The vast amount of circulating information or data exposes the networks to several security risks. Also, with the increased demand it becomes necessary to keep information safe and secure. Many IT industries hire highly qualified personals and use modern technology to secure their information from people with malicious mindset. But no matter how much qualified the security personals are or how advanced is the technology used to secure the information, there is still a vulnerability in every sector ‘HUMAN’.

Data Warfare :

Data is a modern era weapon. If one knows how to secure and properly use data, then it can be weaponized. Its often said that the next world war if ever happens, data will be the major weapon. Data warfare has no specific definition. But there are some segments of data warfare

• Data collection:
  With respect to data warfare, the more amount of data you possess, the more powerful you are considered.
• Data transport:
  Data collection is just a bit of data warfare, but if you are not able to transfer or propagate the data you possess to the proper location or individual, using secure means then there is no use in accumulating a huge amount of data at your end.
• Data protection:
  Data security is very important. If you possess a huge amount of data but it is accessible to your enemy or a person with malicious intent then that data can be used as a weapon against you. One should always make sure that your opponent has minimum access to your data
• Information manipulation:
  This is a form of attack in data warfare. Data can be manipulated in either an organized or disturbed manner. So if someone gets access to some malicious data and manipulates it in a disturbed manner then it can be used as a weapon against the owner of that data.

It's not only about industries or tech giants, whenever major companies face some data breach, they face some major loss in terms of the reputation of their organization as well as some financial loss. But this does not stop here, almost every second data breach is about the common people, it is their data which is at stake. We often hear about ransomware attacks. So when the hackers obtain some of the confidential data from an organization by illegal means and demand something in return in order to give that data back, this type of cyber attack is called a ransomware attack.

After any ransomware attack, that particular organization is highlighted by the media, but what about the data?

Generally, the data which is leaked is credit card credentials, UPI IDs, e-mail IDs and bank details. This data is with respect to common users who are nothing but common people. And this whole data falls in the category of sensitive data. If people with malicious intent obtain this data then it can be used in a number of ways against the owner of the data.

What we should do as a normal user ?

After a ransomware attack, the organization is held responsible for not maintaining proper data security, but often this data breach is done from the user end using a normal user profile and not the admin profile. In this case, any individual is equally responsible for securing his system and data.

As an individual, we can do the following things:

• Never save your bank details and credit card credentials on any server
  which cannot be trusted
• Password security should be maintained :
  Follow some basic rules related to passwords:
  * At least 8 characters
  * Combination of uppercase and lowercase alphabets
  * A mixture of letters and numbers
  * Inclusion of at least 1 special character
• Be smart with emails
  Email phishing is the most commonly used technique by hackers to use the basic user accounts for ransomware attacks
• Set up firewalls
  In order to protect your network, firewalls are an important initiative to consider.

Get this into your daily practice and there you go ….safe and secure.

Happy Learning !!