Warfare has undergone a paradigm shift from Stone Age to Digital Age – “Digital Warfare”. Just imagine that the Stone Age had knocked the door of the Earth 2.5 million years before 10,000BC!!
We all are aware of warfare, history is witness to the fact that wars were fought against enemies to capture boundaries of other countries. We also fight against epidemics, poverty, stigma of society like drugs, slavery, prostitution and so on.
Now is the right time to understand the term “Digital Warfare” . Let’s first understand what is “Digital Age” . This started in the late twentieth century, it was the time to welcome a new technology,“Information technology”. Within just twenty years, we saw the Internet, bridging the gap of communication with many innovations and improvisations in the field of IT.
IT has created great innovations in industrial sectors. Some of these innovations have immensely contributed to various sectors like Defense, Oil & Gas, Aviation Industry, Banking & Insurance sector, Health Care Industry, Governance, e-commerce, and all this in just twenty years! Compared to the stone age where it took 2.5 million years before 10,000 BC, for innovative ideas, and discoveries, today things are changing every day!
In history, we have witnessed various innovations in different centuries; at the same time we are witness to the fact that wars were very rampant and existed widely across the globe.
In this Digital Age also, the “Digital war” has started and the targets of attackers are computer systems , getting access to vital data, files, folders, breaking of architectures etc. The weapons used are by hacking, phishing, use of malwares, viruses etc. These attacks are very quick and create heavy destruction.
The immedicable losses, due to malicious cyber activities, across the globe is estimated to be 6 trillion US $ by 2021!! Hackers plan to achieve that by targeting 65000 cyber attacks every day! And planning to multiply the same by innovating new types of attacks as well!
Let’s have a look at the interesting statistics of cyber attacks:
Fascinating Certitude of Phishing - As per the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR) 2019, 32% of contravention involves Phishing.
As per Check Point Research Security report quarter 2020, 28% of Organizations were impacted due to cyber attack and the rate at which it increased was 20%.
Epitome of Cyber Bombards:
As we are bound to take care of our personal security, safeguard our property, vehicles, assets by deploying proper security, tighten the same, these measures are deployed for our own personal security.
Our personal security will be top of the list, at the same time in today’s Digital Age, it becomes very vital to safeguard our digital assets also and the urgent need is to be proactively prepared for the “Digital Warfare”.
We should never ever differentiate and be casual on our digital security and personal security. It takes lots of effort to build up the assets, companies, net worth, but if there is a snag in our Digital Security system, then all will crash down if the hackers get entry into our digital world.
Now, how do we prepare a digital wall of defense and to counter attack the cyber attacks? Normally we observe that as soon as we come to know our neighbor is a victim a shiver passes through our spine wondering if I am going to be the next prey?
In this digital warfare, the best method is to build up strong digital secured walls, which would be Cyber security optimization. This optimization can be achieved by optimizing basically the major areas briefed as under:
This would be just a beginning, as we are not able to see the attackers physically or perceive the intangible attacks, yet it’s our endeavor and initiative to be great warriors and fight the Digital War and be the winner.