Internet Security

Both of my parents are in the cybersecurity industry! So i probably have a little more dose of internet security than usual and after listening to my parents talk, that was when i realized the true importance of internet security. At first, it seemed to me like something trivial - something not needed. Exception for internet banking. I had this conception that whatever you put on the internet, is whatever you are okay with disclosing to the public. Hence there isn't really much information for people to "steal". Boy was i wrong! Mum has been in the industry ever since the government was without any form of cybersecurity, up until today. After i told her how useless i felt internet security would be to us, she shared with me how the government computers used to be laden with tons of viruses and trojans and they had to come up with firewall to protect the network of government computers. I myself ever experienced getting my computer loaded with so much viruses and worms that the whole computer began to operate very sluggishly and surely i hated those moments. When mum explained, this term 'firewall' came up. New term! A firewall is a system that helps to safeguard the contents of a network by preventing malicious software from entering. This can also mean hacking attempts from various companies or countries to gain access into the resources or intelligence of the country.

To us home-users, it does not have a very big impact on us other than getting our computers flooded with annoying pop-ups or causing our computer to hang with worms running all over in the system. Whereas at a larger scale, corporations need to protect the data of clients, their credit card information especially and sensitive information like their NRIC number and contact numbers. As such, corporations like DBS or Mapletree or FedEX has to consult on the services of IT security firms like Mcafee, Juniper, Norton for ways to defend against cyber attacks. Government websites too become the victim of cyberattacks by Anonymous. At a more serious level, cyberattacks against a country can allow the attacker access to vital defense information and pose a threat to the country.


All of these attacks go through the Internet, the network. They access the data servers of the corporation and extract the personal information of clients or sometimes, they tap the lines between computers and am able to extract the messages. Hence at a big scale, internet security is very crucial in ensuring our personal data (unicorn) remains secure! Also, instead of simply transferring files across the network, more sensitive files can be encrypted and sent across the network before the recipient decrypts it using a program. The users can also abstain from downloading files from file sharing websites or illegally downloading files. These are simple but cumbersome ways in ensuring the safety of the network.

Recently, there was a data leak of the information of 1.9k students and parents were leaked, you can read it here.
Even though this is leakage of information, it does not exactly mean that their internet security isn't tight! But because it was due to negligence. However if such files were encrypted in the first place, then the leakage of this excel file would still have been useless.