Internet Information Security

 Definition

Internet security is a term that describes security for activities and transactions made over the internet. It’s a particular component of the larger ideas of cybersecurity and computer security, involving topics including browser security, online behavior and network security. We spend a large proportion of our lives online, and some of the internet security threats we can encounter include:

Hacking, where unauthorized users gain access to computer systems, email accounts, or websites.

Viruses or malicious software (known as malware) which can damage data or make systems vulnerable to other threats. 

Identity theft, where criminals can steal personal and financial information

 

1. security strategy 

 following are strategies to stay secure on Internet

1. Know what you are securing

The objective of security is to ensure that your critical assets are protected from the basic risks – confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

The first step in achieving this is to determine and track the assets that must be protected. This includes maintaining an inventory of the hardware and software as well as the classification level of the information that is transmitted, processed, and stored by them. 

2. Keep security up to date

One of the most common cyberattack vectors remains exploiting known vulnerabilities in OS software and applications. To combat these attacks, stay on top of the maintenance level of your hardware and software. Unsupported components should be upgraded or replaced as soon as possible. Conduct vulnerability scans for the full infrastructure monthly, and correct issues as soon as possible. Ensure your scans include third-party products and applications. 

3. Maintain access control protocols

During emergencies and periods of change, there is much pressure to swiftly grant access to resources and applications that would normally require further security investigation. This is especially true for administrative and other forms of privileged access

4. Strengthen customer relationships

The pandemic has impacted everyone. More than ever, it is important to understand the changing requirements of both internal and external customers. Their perceptions of current risks to their businesses and of new tools and technologies to help them grow are very important. Provide timely and relevant awareness messages, highlighting the current state of global security. If security is not an effective partner helping to drive the process, it will be quickly forgotten.

5. Observe carefully

A famous baseball coach once said, “You can observe a lot by just looking.” Make better use of the logs and reports provided by the systems and applications running your business. Delineate baselines and metrics defining security health. A change in activity patterns or metrics may be an early indicator of trouble brewing. Develop, maintain, and test a practical security incident management plan so you will know what to do if faced with a real incident.

Online Privacy

Internet privacy refers to the vast range of technologies, protocols and concepts related to giving individual users or other parties more privacy protections in their use of the global Internet.

Internet privacy takes many forms, including mandatory privacy statements on websites, data sharing controls, data transparency initiatives and more.

Internet privacy and anonymity are paramount to users, especially as e-commerce continues to gain traction. Privacy violations and threat risks are standard considerations for any website under development.

Internet privacy is also known as online privacy.

What Is Personal Data?

 “personal data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual. Different pieces of information, which collected together can lead to the identification of a particular person, also constitute personal data.”

Online privacy ties into our fundamental need for safety. If you find it natural to protect your home and physical belongings, the same applies to your digital life. No matter what technology you use (or do not), privacy gives you control of your identity and all the things it is made of.

Internet privacy is becoming a growing concern these days for people of all ages. Companies track your behavior across websites to serve you with highly relevant advertisements, making it essential for you to have an encrypted online connection—experience supreme encryption with PureVPN.

Governments monitor every move you make to predict your behavior and control you better. And cybercriminals leave no stone unturned to steal your data for their nefarious purposes!



On this Privacy Awareness Week, PureVPN is informing readers about the steps they can take to improve their online privacy and protect their personal data. PureVPN continues to make positive contributions to cyberspace by developing tools and making internet users more aware of the modern threats and dangers.

Privacy Awareness Week is being celebrated from May 2 to May 8, 2022.

What is internet privacy?

Internet privacy, also commonly referred to as online privacy, is a subset of data privacy and a fundamental human right. Basically, it refers to the personal privacy that you’re entitled to when you display, store, or provide information regarding yourself on the Internet.



This can include both personally-identifying information (PII) and non-personally-identifying information, such as your behavior on a website. Without Internet privacy, all your activities are subject to being collected and analyzed by interested parties!

3 Common Internet Privacy Issues to Watch Out For

Now that you understand what is Internet privacy and its importance, let’s discuss the most common issues that surround your privacy online today:

1. Tracking

When you browse the Internet, you may have noticed those pesky ads following you where you go based on your earlier web searches or visits to websites. Well, that’s because websites, advertisers, etc. track your movements.



Cookie profiling and other techniques are used to track your overall activities online and create a detailed profile of your browsing habits. Some people may not mind having relevant ads being served up to them, but this is a serious invasion of privacy for others.

2. Surveillance

Some governments spy on their citizens online to supposedly assist law enforcement agencies. For instance, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act authorizes mass surveillance and allows the government to monitor the Internet usage of its citizens legally.

Learn more about the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act here.



Internet companies (ISPs), telcos, and other communication service providers are required to retain customers’ Internet connection records for a year, which can be obtained by government authorities and used in investigations – even if you’re not related to them in any way!

According to Data Privacy Statistics, Facts & Trends of 2022, a report by Cloudware, more than 70% of internet users have resorted to an online tool or software, which can keep them safe from online surveillance.

3. Theft

A staggering 49 million Americans were affected by identity theft in 2021, according to Fortunly. Cybercriminals use malware, spyware, and phishing techniques to break into your online accounts or devices and steal your personal information to engage in identity theft activities.



Of course, the victims end up losing most or all of their hard-earned money just because they didn’t exercise caution when it comes to opening attachments, instant messages, or emails from unknown sources.

4 online habits that impact your privacy

You’ve heard time and time again that online privacy and security is important, but do you actually do something about it? Most of us practice bad Internet hygiene and don’t even realize it, so don’t forget to avoid doing the following:

1. Using the Same Credentials for Multiple Accounts

Sure, it’s easy to remember and get things done online when you use the same credentials across your accounts. But if a cybercriminal can gain access to your one accounts, they’ll most likely get into the other ones as well.

2. Staying Logged in to Websites

Not logging out of websites and having them remember your credentials is indeed convenient. However, it also leaves your online accounts and personal information vulnerable to anyone who uses or hacks into your device.

3. Using Services without Reading their Terms & Conditions

Never click “agree” until you understand what you’re getting yourself into. You wouldn’t want to legally grant companies and service providers access to all kinds of data. Then sell this information to the highest bidder!

4. Opening Suspicious Attachments or Downloading Malicious Files

It would help if you were careful when opening attachments in emails or social media as they could contain malware and viruses. Similarly, it always downloads files from trusted sources because it may result in virus infection.

Cryptography is an information security tactic used to protect enterprise information and communication from cyber threats through the use of codes.

Applications of Cryptography

Secure communications

The most obvious use of cryptography, and the one that all of us use frequently, is encrypting communications between us and another system. This is most commonly used for communicating between a client program and a server. Examples are a web browser and web server, or email client and email server. When the internet was developed it was a small academic and government community, and misuse was rare. Most systems communicated in the clear (without encryption), so anyone who intercepted network traffic could capture communications and passwords. Modern switched networks make interception harder, but some cases – for example, public wifi – still allow it. To make the internet more secure, most communication protocols have adopted encryption. Many older protocols have been dropped in favour of newer, encrypted replacements.

End-to-end Encryption

Email is one area where encryption is not widely in use. When email moves from server to server, and from server to you, it is encrypted. On the mail server and on your system, however, an administrator can read it. There are options to implement “end-to-end” encryption for email (I use PGP) but email systems are complex and these options are complex. Truly secure messaging systems – where only the sender and receiver can read the message – are those where encryption has been built in from the start. Whatsapp is good; Signal is better.

Storing Data

We all store a large amount of data, and any data is valuable to at least the person who generated it. Every operating system uses encryption in some of the core components to keep passwords secret, conceal some parts of the system, and make sure that updates and patches are really from the maker of the system.

Storing Passwords



A cryptographically hashed password

In the last blog post I briefly introduced cryptographic hashing, a one-way mapping of a string to a fixed-length value. One of the main uses of this is to store passwords. It is very risky to store passwords in an accessible way. If stored in plaintext on a system, anyone who has access to the system – legitimate or malicious – can read the password. Encryption is only a partial answer to storing passwords.