Cyber security refers to the set of solutions, services and trainings that can be implement by a company or an organization for cyber defense against cyber attacks. According to the reports of cyber security consulting company, enterprises or organizations are increasingly becoming aware of cyber attacks. Since last year, almost 35% of enterprises in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, United States, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, UAE, India have increased their investments in cyber security services and that is why there is a big need of cyber security consulting professionals to implement cyber defense solutions. Understanding the reasons behind cyber attacks, allows an enterprise to easily acquire the cyber security services and design a cyber security plan in a more effective manner. According to experts from cyber security institute, the fear of focused cyber attacks is making governments, companies or organizations to spend money on cyber security services and solutions. These implementation plans of cyber security services & solutions go far beyond than investing in traditional solutions like firewalls, vulnerability management, etc. In general, they are looking for more sophisticated cyber security services and smart cyber security solutions that can protect them from advance cyber attacks.
As the governments and big companies are involved in the issue of cyber security, the forms of implementing cyber security services & solutions has changed radically. According to the professor of cyber security school, cyber security has become a necessary thing in all aspects. Big companies are not only focusing on cyber security services & solutions, they also want their IT team to be an expert in the field of cyber security. To develop cyber security skills in their IT team, companies should focus on the cyber security training. With the help of cyber security training, small businesses can also understand and implement advanced cyber security solutions without the help of a cyber security consulting company.
Governments of various countries especially US, Russia, China, UK, Germany, and India have been developing and employing offensive cyber capabilities including cyber espionage and critical infrastructure attacks. These efforts are not really focused on cyber security however it more about taking control of cyberspace and this is similar to cold war in early 80’s. To discourage cyber attacks, many governments are thinking about using sanctions and other typical actions used for an act of war. These actions will help in some scenarios but not in others scenarios where forensics cannot yield sufficient evidence. As per experts from cyber security institute, to defend in cyberspace, governments must play a proactive role in cyber security domain.
Cyber security school professor, Dave smith mentions that for government to protect private sector’s in cyberspace is a complex task as there are lot of political constraints. Implementation of Cyber security services and cyber defense solutions for law enforcement in cyberspace is very complex. Due to global nature of Internet’s infrastructure and public – private ownership of Internet’s infrastructure, the decision of ownership of jurisdictions is complicated.
As the cases of private sector espionage are increasing many governments agencies are coming forward and partnering with other governments agencies and the private sector to ensure security from cyber attacks by foreign state and non-state actors. By partnering with the cyber security organizations and cyber security consulting companies, government agencies can maintain stronger foothold over cyberspace. As there are many cyber security organizations working on government sponsored projects and these organizations have resources available to monitor new threats. Thus these cyber security organizations can share the threat information with cyber security consulting companies and other private sector companies.
The governments of various countries can develop following programs as part of their cyber security strategies and their wars against cybercrime.
General Cyber Security Education Program
The aim of general cyber security education program should be to increase cyber security awareness among general public. Government agencies can partner with cyber security schools and ensure that people learn how to be more secure online in cyber space. Similar programs were launched by cyber security organizations and cyber security schools in Europe and were aimed at increasing the understanding of cyber threats and how cyber crime works. According the experts from cyber security institute, government agencies can organize television & online advertisement programs and set up local community discussion groups to increase the awareness.
Cyber Security Training and Development Program
According to cyber security institute experts; the biggest problem in the field of cyber security, is the extreme shortage of highly qualified cyber security consulting experts. The existing cyber security education system must produce more highly qualified students. These cyber security consulting experts can keep the government and the private sector ahead in the technology. The government needs to develop a strategy to expand and support cyber security education programs led by existing cyber security schools. The aim of cyber security training and development program should be to make sure that government and private sector have cyber security consulting experts working for them. Government should work with cyber security schools and make sure that the level of cyber security training is as per the international standards. Cyber security trainings can be in following areas: General IT user, information technology infrastructure, operations, maintenance, and information assurance, digital forensics, malware analysis, cloud security, mobile security, exploit development, cyber defense, cyber law, counterintelligence and advance cyber security trainings. As per cyber security institute experts, with the help of cyber security trainings, private sector will have the most benefit as it will reduce their spending on cyber security services.
Infrastructure Program for Cyber Security Education
The aim of cyber security education system program should be to focus more on creating new cyber security schools and improvement of existing cyber security schools. This program should include working along with cyber security schools and cyber security organizations to develop R&D programs in this field. Infrastructure program for cyber security education should support the formal cyber security education and should be also a leading program for cyber security research and development. This program will help the government, private sector, existing cyber security consulting companies and cyber security organizations. All these cyber security schools can also act as cyber security services centers and act as a reference authority for existing universities and schools.
Incident Response Cyber Security Program
Government agencies can partner with the cyber security organizations and cyber security consulting companies in the incident response field. Cyber Security Institute experts explain that if a big company like bank, multinational company etc suffers a cyber attack; it can take help of government to do Forensic analysis of the cyber attack. However if small business suffers a cyber attack; it is not easy for it to take help of government for forensic analysis of cyber attack. Thus with the help of this program, small business can take help of cyber security organizations or cyber security consulting companies for forensic analysis of cyber attack. The other solution is to build an in-house cyber security consulting team with the help of experts from a good cyber security school.
Cyber Security Human Resource Program
The aim of cyber security human resource program should be to manage cyber security jobs, people recruitment and career path strategies. With the help of this program government agencies can manage federal workforce, the government workforce, intelligence agencies workforce, cyber security organizations workforce and the private sector workforce in the cyber security domain. Cyber security institute experts mention that cyber security human resource program can be used for managing and evaluating cyber security professionals. This would help in cyber security consulting workforce development and cyber security trainings program development.
Bug Bounty and Award Program
It is not enough for the information technology professionals to understand the importance of cyber security; leaders at all levels of government and private sector need to understand importance of cyber security. Thus cyber security training will not just help lower level employees but business leaders also and will help them to make business and investment decisions based on knowledge of risks and potential impacts. One such important decision is bug bounty and award program. The aim of bug bounty and award program should be to compensate cyber security researchers for finding vulnerabilities and reporting them instead of selling them in the black market. As per cyber security training professor Deen Wright, it’s very important for government leaders to make suitable alliances with leaders of cyber security companies and cyber security organizations to develop appropriate bug bounty and award program to compensate cyber security researchers for their effort.
Thus government can develop a strategy to expand its alliances with various private sector companies, existing cyber security consulting companies, cyber security schools and cyber security organizations to proactively defend against cyber attack, acts of espionage and establishing a stronger foothold in the cyber space.
Source:https://www.iicybersecurity.com/cyber-security-institute.html
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.
