An Introduction to Cybersecurity: Internet security anti-virus methods, and information security

On 1 July 2021 at 10:00 am, Dr Qais Saif Qassim delivered a talk on cybersecurity in accordance with the IT webinars for society sequels. The talk covered six objectives toward fostering cybersecurity awareness among the public. The first objective was to provide some general information and background knowledge on why cybersecurity is required and what are we trying to protect. Therefore, the basic security requirements, including confidentiality, integrity, and availability, were defined and explained. The second objective was to outline the basic terminology and keywords used in this field. Thus, several technical terms were defined and described, such as threat, threat vector, vulnerabilities, and risk. The third objective was to highlight some of the current challenges in defending against modern attacks. The top ten challenges were outlined and described. Among these challenges, the speaker emphasised the availability and simplicity of attack tools, the impact of IoT and universally connected devices, the rapid development of the technologies and vulnerability detections platforms, and the sophistication of modern attacks.

The fourth objective was to list and describe the commonly seen cyberattacks. Types of malware, network attacks, protocol-based attacks, and social engineering attacks were discussed. The speaker illustrated how a simple file with a Windows OS-native command can be used to harm our data. The fifth objective of the session was to deliver some best practices and procedures to protect our data and mitigate cybersecurity risks. Lastly, the speaker conveyed suggestions on becoming an expert in cybersecurity and pursuing one of the fields’ recognised certificates.

The talk lasted for two hours, with a QA session at the end. Seventy-two participants attended the session and rated it at 4.6/5.

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Score 4.6/5