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Risk in the Cybersecurity & Network Security Field

Cristian Montanez

University of Advancing Technology

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Introduction

Cybersecurity is currently one of the top grossing industries, as it is necessary to

counteract many crimes that occur online. And not just crime, just bugs and errors that occurs

such as data loss. But soon now in the world, people have weaponized the internet and use it to

harm people and harm their livelihood. Now this is why this field of cybersecurity exist, to just

defend the average person and companies online from malicious groups that want to cause harm,

but there are some flaws that exist to this industries that will most likely succeed to anyone who

isn’t paying attention. There are many malwares, and malware is software with the sole intent of

taking information or just ruining your computer. This will be the topic of this paper and it will

explain the risk of cybersecurity and what will happen if you do not follow right procedures or

stay vigilante on the internet.

Malware

Now what is malware? Malware is a collective name for the whole collective group of

malicious software variants, this software codes are developed by cyberattackers, to cause

damage to data, servers or to gain unauthorized access to networks that they wouldn’t normally

have access to. Malware is something that causes damage by either disrupting some processes,

such as it may create more scripts in your processes and maybe fill up and us all your CPU

processing, change some scripts, making more windows or processes appear, and it could

possibly change settings or even send data to other computer or networks. This is of course,

results of malware, as there are many types of malware, but I shall give a base to base description

on each malware and how to prevent these malwares from taking over your system. From here

we will talk about the largest malware that is being distributed, Trojan Viruses.
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Trojans

Trojan Viruses are named after the Trojan Horse, something that seems legitimate and all

fine, until it gains access to your domain, from there it takes control and causes damage or

mayhem to your domain. Now let us bring this to terms of a network for a business, let’s say

someone hacks into our third party support and sends us an email to the main network saying

“Install this program to update our antivirus to our newer versions” and someone does install it

foolishly, then the Trojan finally would do what ever it is programed to do, such as a commonly

used Trojan which is a Ransom Trojan such as “AIDS Trojan”, a trojan that replaced a

AUTOEXECT.BAT file, the counting mechanism for how many times the computer boots, once

it reached a certain number it went into the directory of the computer and encrypted everything,

once that occurs, it would ask to renew your license and to send payment to a PO Box. This type

of virus will cost a lot of money from removing the virus and not having access to the

information due to encryption, will cost a lot of money to see where you were vulnerable, how

the program rooted itself into your director and took over. This virus is a horrible malware to

have, but luckily there are many simple tips and processes to prevent these Trojans from ruining

your computer or networks.

Mitigations

There are many ways to mitigate a Trojan Horse, let us start with the main ways to

defend against any malware. First and foremost, you need to make sure you have antivirus, or

any defending software that is trustworthy, for both online and your computer/network. Keeping

a defender such as windows defender or as well Norton security, but any trustworthy antivirus

system will operate fine. Then afterwards once that is all fine, create administration rules, where

certain task such as installing programs or changing the firewall and directory is limited to only
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administration so admin on a home computer, or IT Managers in Networks for companies,

preventing anyone with lower clearance to affect a whole network or download anything

unauthorized into the system and network. And finally, and importantly if you receive an email

from a source you do not feel certain about, then scan it with a virus detector, and if it is a virus,

delete it. Also, updates are necessary, if your systems are updated, then less risk occurs for

exploits to be used, and it will make everything a lot easier.

Conclusion

Risk exist in this field of work as they do in many other fields, it is the good and the bad,

the Ying and the Yang, but we have ways to prevent and detect many risks. Risk comes in all

shapes and forms in Cyber Security, malware being one of the huge risks that continues to grow

each and every day, and the most dangerous are Trojans, easily to disguise themselves as a safe

program only to ruin and destroy your computer or network. But from taking easy steps to create

administration, check emails, stay updated and get a good antivirus software, you can prevent

loss from your company or your own computer and stay one step ahead of the risk.
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Sources

A definition of malware. (n.d.). Retrieved May 08, 2020, from

https://www.bullguard.com/bullguard-security-center/pc-security/computer-

threats/malware-definition,-history-and-classification.aspx

Avoiding a Trojan Virus: Keeping the Gates Closed. (n.d.). Retrieved May 09, 2020, from

https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/preemptive-safety/avoiding-a-trojan-virus

UpGuard. (2019, December 09). 17 Ransomware Examples. Retrieved May 09, 2020, from

https://www.upguard.com/blog/ransomware-examples

What is a computer worm and how does it work? (n.d.). Retrieved May 08, 2020, from

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-what-is-a-computer-worm.html