Basic of cyber security

Basic Cyber Security Concepts: Where Do I Start?

Interested in the world of cyber security but overwhelmed by the amount of information available? Even in a niche field like cyber security, you may feel a need to bone up on the basics before diving into your first undergraduate class in this burgeoning field.

Cyber Security Clarified

The term itself is beginning to sound a bit outdated, but cyber security is an evolving field centered around information sent and received through computer systems. As the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework on cybersecurity explains it, a cyber security professional is preoccupied with five facets of securing electronic information:

• Identify threats
• Protect information
• Detect attacks and intrusions
• Respond to attacks and intrusions
• Recover database and information security and rebuild defenses against intrusion

Where to Learn These Basics

The U.S. government spends significant amounts of taxpayer money on fundamental research, then makes that research readily available to big and small businesses, individuals, researchers and, yes, undergraduate students. To prepare for your first foray into a cyber security study program, you can bone up on basics by tapping into these resources:

• NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework
• CSO’s rundown of the five most common cyber attacks
• Reports from The Threat Brief — You can get up to speed fast by reading about the practical problems faced by the front line of cyber security specialists
• Bob Gourley’s e-book, The Cyber Threat: Know the Threat to Beat the Threat — For $0.99 you can get a primer from the Director of Intelligence in the first Department of Defense cyber defense organization and the lead for cyber intelligence at Cognitio Corp

Small Potatoes?

While the need for securing financial, medical, personal and proprietary information seems obvious (and well publicized) for major companies and international organizations, the NIST framework reminds cyber security professionals that small businesses — which make up 99.7 percent of American firms, according to the Small Business Administration — require protection, too.

In a market economy dependent on interconnectedness, no potato is too small, either for cyber thieves or for cyber security. So part of the basics of cyber security must include an appreciation for these supply chain risks, says NIST. Working in cyber security today means a flexibility to help a neighborhood grocer manage credit card transactions, then turning around and helping a multinational firm secure its sales representatives’ netbooks in 20 different languages.

Worth Studying

To earn an entry level slot within the field, a student of cyber security should know some of the basics about several areas:

• Communication
• Business methods
• Psychology
• Customer service
• Statistics
• Physics

Nothing in that list speaks to your deep-dive topic, cyber security. You need to be a well-rounded person to be useful to any business. Yes, eventually, you may find that very narrow specialty within cyber security that is both valuable and bottomless, but to earn your way up — or down — to that exquisite, finely tuned specialty, you have to be able to conduct business and get along with customers.

Easing Into Essentials

With a thorough grounding in the general academics required to earn an undergraduate degree, you can start taking essential coursework that feeds your hunger for cyber security:

• Logic
• Cloud solutions
• Networking
• Linux administration
• Databases
• Principles of cybersecurity
• Operating systems
• Routing and switching
• Networks protocols
• Windows client and server
• Ethical hacking

Expertise Needed to work in the Field

Those courses will give you the foundation skills you need to make sense of more sophisticated coursework directly tailored to a successful entry into cyber security. Once you master the basics of how information gets on to electronic systems, how it moves, and how it is recovered and interpreted, you can take courses like these to defend that information:

• Storage area networks and disaster recovery
• Security systems administration
• Advanced defense and countermeasures
• Advanced Linux administration
• Wireless security