Cybersecurity – Protecting yourself in cyberspace

OCTOBER is observed nationwide as Consumer Welfare Month and my office, being the lead agency for 2017 teamed up with the Cordillera ConsumerNet and partner agencies for several provincial forums with the theme “Consumer Rights in the Digital Age”.

I joined the ConsumerNet team for the Bontoc, Mountain Province and Lagawe, Ifugao forums as resource person on “Cybersecurity - Protecting Yourself in Cyberspace” while other team members focused on text scams and spams, procedures for filing complaints, staying safe as an online consumer and Phishing, e-mail scams and other updates. I used valuable data and updates from the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and learned that international terrorist groups such as the ISIS uses social media for recruitment and getting support. The DICT report also showed that even drug trade is being conducted online aside from cyber human trafficking or cybersex.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), cybersecurity is the collection of tools, policies, security concepts, security safeguards, guidelines, risk management approaches, actions, training, best practices, assurance and technologies that can be used to protect the cyber environment and organization and user’s assets.

So, what is happening in the so-called cyberspace? Using the DICT report, I mentioned in the forum mostly attended by students that criminals use digital technology to steal money, government units use it for surveillance and hacktivists use it to further political goals. I did not dwell much on fake online news as it is already commonly observed. However, I told the students to discern from what is legitimate and what is not by studying and scrutinizing the source of information.

I discussed common cyber threats such as Phishing which is the fraudulent practice of sending emails to induce individuals to reveal personal and financial information. Hacking is the unauthorized access to data in a system and Malware is the malicious software intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems. Cyber criminals also attack people with social engineering by psychologically manipulating users into divulging confidential information such as work environment and even personal financial resources.

There is a more serious cyber threat called Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack in which multiple computer systems, such as a server, website or network resources are attacked and compromised causing a denial of service by users. DDoS Attack like the Zombie Network that once a virus infects a system, it also spreads and infects others. The DICT data showed that floods of incoming messages, connection requests or malformed packets to the target system forces it to slow down or even crash and shut down, thereby denying service to legitimate users or systems. Other than that, there are "zombies" or malware called BOTNETS that collects compromised and infected computers and devices that allows an attacker to control them and launch a big attack to multiple networks. According to the DICT data, there is no stopping the rising number of worldwide kidnapping of data via the use of Ransomware. The most recent one called “Wanna Cry” infected over 200,000 computers worldwide. Ransomware is a type of malware that prevents or limits users from accessing their system, either by locking the