WHAT IS CYBER AND IT SECURITY?

We live in a connected world. It’s hard to imagine that what once began as a small number of large computers in the 1970s has grown to encompass billions of connected devices from personal computers, mobile phones, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Yet the advent of personal computing has come with the price of added security risks in day-to-day life. Likewise, the risk to organizations from a network-enabled cyber attack has increased exponentially. Threats can occur at any point on the internet where there is a potential weakness that hackers can exploit either via a phishing email message, a spoof social media posting or even a compromised hardware. As the number of devices grows, the potential for attack and disruption increases.

WHY IS CYBER SECURITY CRUCIAL FOR ANY ORGANIZATION?

With technology becoming increasingly sophisticated, the skills of the criminals often outpace the ability of security professionals inside organizations. The proof of this is the number of attacks that succeed. With the increased importance of cyber security, qualified and well-trained engineers are in great demand. Organizations need people who have mastered the skills to secure networks and to protect systems, computers, and data from attack, damage and/or unauthorized access.

Cyber security breaches are costly and damaging to any organization, in terms of both capital and reputation. A recent survey reported that 43 percent of organizations had experienced a data breach involving sensitive customer or business information in the past two years. Based on this data, two in five organizations are hit each year with a serious breach in which a significant amount of confidential data is compromised. 

It seems like hardly a week goes by without at least one report of a data breach in the news. A store may have had their credit card data stolen. A health insurance company may have lost the records of those they cover. The government loses records of those with clearances while what was supposed to be private emails are now being published on activist websites. It seems as though no organization, private or public, is safe from cyber attacks. 

The nature of cyber attacks is changing drastically. Initially, the most common target was the email, like the messages from ‘banks’ asking for account details or even the inheritance claim from a relative that was unknown. As various avenues of computing advanced, cyber attacks advanced as well to larger scale operations which are no longer limited to targeting an individual but rather enterprises from the financial markets to the government sector. The cost of such advanced cyber attacks cannot be measured in capital losses alone but must also be measured in the intangible such as reputation. According to studies done by IBM, the average cost of a data breach is $3.62 million which to many companies is too steep a cost.

CYBER AND IT SECURITY CERTIFICATION COURSES AND EXAMS PROVIDED BY ILEARN

iLEARN offers the following certification courses and exams in the Cyber and IT Security area:

• CompTIA Security+ 501
• EXIN Cyber and IT Security
  • EXIN Cyber and IT Security Foundation
• SECO Institute Information Security
  • SECO Institute Information Security Foundation (S-IFS)
• SECO Institute IT-Security
  • SECO Institute IT-Security Foundation (S-ITSF)
  • SECO Institute IT-Security Practitioner (S-ITSP)
  • SECO Institute IT-Security Expert (S-ITSE)
• SECO Institute Secure Software Developer
  • SECO Institute Secure Programming Foundation