Recalibrating National Security To Improve Cybersecurity

For years, nations have been spending top dollar to ramp up defense, citizen safety and border security infrastructure. However, technological evolution and urbanization are expanding the threat matrix outside the physical realm: rapid digitization is raising concerns about cyber safety. Expenses on physical security has not taken a backseat, but the enormity of cyber threats from internal and external sources, hacktivists, and cybercriminals has emphasized the need to strengthen cybersecurity more than physical security.

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The category of terrorism itself has changed drastically over the last two decades. It has evolved over time as newer technologies are accessible to terrorist groups, making cyber terrorism a newly developed pitfall in the face of technological evolution. The escalated percentage of skilled cybercriminals is clashing with the development of more critical tools that are probably entering the broader ecosystem through an outlawed market. Enterprises are highly dependent on their data assets, and even the slightest hindrance can shatter executive leadership, reputation, profits and the entire businesses. And these criminals are seeking ways to earn money by preying on large corporations that possess a gamut of confidential data.

Today, there's no alternative to a well-designed cybersecurity framework as the bedrock of an enterprise. This is because there is an array of reasons which trigger cyber-terrorism, the most common being an easy-access system. While it's a task to decode a complex system, skilled hackers can penetrate by breaching entry codes and even falsify voice recognition. A minute loop in the coding of an operating system might not be a huge deal, but these security gaps remain vulnerable and can be easily cashed in on by hacktivists.

No matter the variety or nature of defense, cyber-attacks will continue to increase in number and quality. Given that cyberwarfare is already in motion, we might witness these stealthy criminals manipulating not only the easy targets but also the cyber experts to click a button and be held hostage to ransoms that have no trail. Hence, cyber intelligence will be the grounding approach towards protecting strategic infrastructures, and critical and intellectual property by proactively assembling intelligence through research and analysis: making it an absolute requirement of the security dogma.

While the whole world wholeheartedly spends on cybersecurity, attention to the magnanimous flow of information is often sidelined. The collection of real-time and established intelligence means there are ways of accumulating and analyzing this intelligence to empower law enforcement agencies to gather time-bound sensitive information that can be designed as a proactive precautionary modus operandi.

Governments and organizations should question themselves; about how many layers of security are required as well as how to accumulate, correspond, and reconstruct the volumes of information that is being circulated as actionable intelligence. This can be used a mode of self-defense while mounting a counterattack, to shield national security at the point where a potential crisis germinates.

Countries should stress on forming security approaches, both on the cybersecurity as well as cyber intelligence domain so that they maintain a rationale that forms a stage for law and order. This, going forward will allow them to keep an eye on the moves of stealthy hackers, cyber-terrorists, and espionage organizations.