CRITICAL ROLE OF CYBERSECURITY
WHY CYBERSECURITY MATTERS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF MALICIOUS INTENT Cyberattacks and cybersecurity have grown and developed as IT has become increasingly integral to business operations. This struggle has been ongoing since the early days of the IT industry.
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ccording to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the 1990s brought the first outbreak of cyber-viruses, as well as the first polymorphic virus – a code that mutates while keeping the original algorithm intact, in order to avoid detection. One of the most memorable viruses the public was introduced to was called ‘Good Times’. This malicious program was sent
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to users’ email addresses with the subject line ‘Good Times’ and, once downloaded, would wipe out the entire hard disk. The growing threat of malicious viruses paved the way for companies such as Symantec to develop the first anti-virus software. However, early anti-virus was unfortunately signature-based. This meant that early anti-virus solutions produced many false positives and used a lot of computational power. During 1995/96, these cyber-viruses evolved and posed more threats as well as challenges for anti-virus solutions that were already on the market. Many people were also introduced to spyware, although the intention of the spyware back then was to monitor activity, rather than disrupt the computer. It was Gibson Research that developed the first anti-spyware program in late 1999. What seemed to be something fairly new turned into something catastrophic as new viruses and malware grew from tens of thousands attacks in the early 1990s to
rising by five million every year until 2007. In the 21st century, malware has evolved to the point that governments can now deploy such programs as cyber-weapons. Stuxnet is one example, which targeted nuclear reactors in Iran. The 2010s were the start of numerous high-profile breaches. Cybercrime had evolved to the point that it began to compromise the security of countries, while also costing companies many millions of dollars. Cybercriminals were and are becoming smarter and more vicious.
A constantly changing picture In recognising the danger of these newer threats, a lot of the larger corporate and financial companies have made the necessary changes to address these rising cyber-threats such as investing in cybersecurity solutions and managed services such as multifactor authentication (MFA), firewalls, endpoint protection,
