What is Cyber Security and why is it needed?
Tags: security, beginners, tutorial, career
Published: 2023-09-04 04:30:00

## What is Cyber Security?

- Cyber Security allows us to protect digital assets. Imagine that it’s like protecting anything that is valuable for us.
- The goal of Cyber Security is to protect anything from private and personal information, our website or application, our entire company’s data and business plans.

### Who are Hackers?

- In an ideal world, there is no need for Cyber Security, because every person is good and they won’t use anything for a bad cause.
- But in reality, there are a lot of people just waiting to inflict damage on other people. And in the digital world, we call those people, **Black Hat Hackers**. Now their motives can be different as to why they want to perform malicious attacks.
- There are also good hackers called **White Hat Hackers**.

### Black Hat Hackers

![Hacker](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ueidnway9nd8lm60itby.jpg)

- Black Hat Hackers are called like that because they do malicious things.
- The number one motive of Black Hat Hackers is financial gain. They also can perform their attacks in order to discover some sensitive information about a company.
- These black Hats, may use a set of tools to automate attacks, use certain hacking techniques and exploit their targets. Here are a few examples:

  - They usually exploit their targets with something called a **Payload**: which is a piece of software dropped on the target machine and it is used to compromise it.
  - Black Hats may also want to compromise as many devices as they can and add them to their zombie army or botnet. They can achieve all of this with many methods like delivering payloads through different exploits.
  - Or target certain vulnerabilities in the system.
  - Or running **Phishing attacks**: that target people by tricking them into submitting private information to a fake page.
  - They can also trick people into downloading pieces of malicious software like a **Trojan** that will then infect their devices.

### Cyber Security Expert

- In the same way, Black Hat Hackers have their methods of attacking, As Cyber Security Experts we have our own methods of protecting ourselves from these types of attacks.

  - Antivirus software, Firewalls, Security Experts and all the tools they use to automate security are what prevent an attack from compromising a company and its devices.
  - If we can successfully block the malicious attacks, then our security plan or tactic can be considered good.
  - Now you can see that, without security measures, Black Hat Hackers can directly attack important infrastructure and steal or compromise the company’s valuable data. And the hackers can easily get away with it.

#### Importance of Security Software and Automation tools:

- To make our lives easier, there are many tools and software that can help us automate certain Security Jobs that are repetitive and can get boring after some time.
- These automation tools also allow us to perform our jobs a lot faster. And when it comes to Security, speed and time are important factors
- One of the most common tools you may have heard of, are Antiviruses and Firewalls.

#### How to get started?

![Cyber Security Expert](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/j9umnmyawqjrtk1dag4g.jpg)

- The goal of the **Cyber Security Expert** is to always overpower the Black Hat Hacker and prevent any type of attack they run.
  - This is not of course easy, and takes years and years of learning to truly master the aspect of Cyber Security.
  - Also, it is important to note that technology is constantly evolving and there’s a need to stay updated with the latest tools and knowledge all the time.
- Now, security is a very broad and wide area. Since it applies to pretty much everything:
  - It can apply to your personal computer or device security.
  - Your network security
  - Mobile Phone Security can be narrowed down to Android Security and iOS Security.
  - Server Security can be narrowed down to the technologies on which the server is built and respective security best practices to use.
  - Website Application Security can be narrowed down to the technologies on which the website is built and respective security best practices to use.
  - And many more…
- Once you learn the fundamentals of Cyber Security, it will be up to you to decide on which branch you would further proceed to work. Since mastering Security in detail for everything is not easy.
- Check out the resources I've added at the end of this blog, to get started with Cyber Security.

### Advice from Cyber Security Experts

- Cyber Security Professionals, like [Aleksa Tamburkovski](https://academy.zerotomastery.io/a/aff_qkw36r3f/external?affcode=441520_dcwk-s8s) state that
  - “Luckily things get a bit easier for us once we get a job as a Security Expert in a company.”
  - Most of the companies have multiple Security Engineers and Experts working in different branches of Security.
  - It’s good to know that if we lack knowledge in certain aspects of Security, for example, Mobile Security. There will probably be a colleague in that company who is good at Mobile Security and can take responsibility.

By now, I hope you have gained a brief knowledge of what Cybersecurity is, why it is needed and sparked enough interest in your to learn more.

### Who Am I ?

I’m Aswin Barath, a Software Engineering Nerd who loves building Web Applications, now sharing my knowledge through [Blogging](https://dev.to/aswin2001barath/) during the busy time of my freelancing work life. Here’s the link to all of my socials categorized by platforms under one place: https://linktr.ee/AswinBarath

**Join me to learn Cyber Security!**

Checkout the **[Cybersecurity Series](https://dev.to/aswin2001barath/series/24168)** where my mission is to share my knowledge on Security concepts like Cyber Security and Hacking: https://dev.to/aswin2001barath/series/24168

**Best Resources:**

Learn what I know about Cyber Security from my favourite knowledge sources:

- [Top 5 Reasons To Learn Cyber Security](https://academy.zerotomastery.io/a/aff_dfptz2d9/external?affcode=441520_dcwk-s8s) (Blog)
- [Cyber Security Cheat Sheet](https://academy.zerotomastery.io/a/aff_7znchnv7/external?affcode=441520_dcwk-s8s)
- [Ethical Hacker & Cybersecurity Expert Career Path](https://dev.to/aswin2001barath/ethical-hacker-cybersecurity-expert-career-path-449m) (Detailed Blog)
- [Complete Cybersecurity Bootcamp](https://dev.to/aswin2001barath/complete-cybersecurity-bootcamp-480o) (Course)
- [Complete Ethical Hacking Bootcamp](https://dev.to/aswin2001barath/complete-ethical-hacking-bootcamp-2im2) (Course)

🎙 Disclosure: Please note that some of the links mentioned on this page may be affiliate links. This means that if you click on one of these links and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission from the sale.

**Thank you** so much for reading my blog🙂.

Happy hacking! 🕵️‍♀️🔒