Internet, Mobile, Email and Cloud Security Threats and Strategies

INTRODUCTION TO
FINANCIAL & DATA
LITERACY

Introduction
With the development in the internet technology and numerous communication
solutions over the years, the lives of the human beings have become highly dependent on
emails, cloud technology and mobile devices. The above technologies facilitate the sharing of
the ideas and resources with billions of the connected people. These technologies have not
only made the communication processes easier and agile but has also led to the reduction in
the costs. However, with the benefits of these technologies, there have risen numerous threats
in the form of the data, privacy breaches and others. New spamming techniques have
developed largely in the form of software attacks in the form of Viruses, Worms, Trojan
Horses, Malwares and others. If left unaddressed, these threats and infections cannot not only
lead to the economic losses for the entity, but also undermine the confidence of the
stakeholders and thus the goodwill of the enterprise. The work is aimed at analysing the
various threats surrounding each of these technologies and the strategies that can be adopted
to safeguard the interests of the users and minimize then threats.
Internet Security
The term “internet of things” has become synonymous with the modern business
operations, lives of the individuals and overall society. The varied areas that have been
conquered by the use of the internet technologies are the education, healthcare, research,
financial data transactions and others (Abomhara & Koien, 2015). The vast connectivity and
numerous users have also raised the demand for the robust security in response to the
enhanced use and the complexities. The major threats surrounding the use of the internet are
elaborated as follows.
Threats
Privacy is the chief issue in use of the environment owing to the vulnerable internet
environment. The connection of the entities, and the communication of the data though
exchange renders the privacy of the users to be a sensitive subject. The issue of privacy is
vital in various processes such as data collection, data sharing and management. The hackers
and intruders play on the vulnerabilities of system, software design and the internal policies
of an enterprise to gather the private information of the users. The data of the users can be
either lost or modified by the hackers for their own purposes. The second major threat that is
related to the first one in the use of the internet is the issue of resiliency against contact with

the physical attacks. When the internet related devices are left unattended in the physical
locations, the intruders can capture the device, modify the programming of the device and
replace them with malicious codes that are under the control of them.
Strategies
The strategies to address the threats to the internet use are elaborated as follows. The
unauthorized access to or from a private network can be prevented through the installation of
a firewall. The use of the firewall aids in the scanning of each and every packet received to a
particular computer system and thereby it is either allowed or blocked. The firewalls make
use of the various types of signatures and host conditions to deny or allow traffic to the
system. The second measure that can be enabled is the use of the ad blocker. Ad-blockers aid
in the prevention of the ads and s that have the ability to get past the anti-virus scanners. The
ads can be stopped from being displayed and thus ensures privacy of the users. Further in
terms of the physical access, the data repositories must be secured with strong passwords and
must be accessible to only a trustworthy section of managers only.
Mobile Device Security
Threats
Just like the infection of the personal computers, there are variety of means that can
pose significant threats to the mobile devices of the individuals as well. The mobile devices
threats are majorly divided into four categories namely the web-based threats, network-based
threats, application-based threats, and physical threats. The malware can perform malicious
actions in the phone which may lead to charging of the phone bill, give an attacker control
over the device or even send unsolicited messages to the one’s contact list. The malware can
gather sensitive information such as location, contact lists, personally identifiable information
and use them at places where such personal information is desired and which is otherwise not
available (Roman, Lopez & Mambo, 2018). The vulnerable applications also pose threats to
the mobile devices which may lead to the performance of the undesirable actions on the
device, such as starting or stopping a service from functioning correctly, or may even lead to
the downloading of the applications to the device without the knowledge of the owners. One
of the yet another key security threat is in the form of the eavesdropping. The eavesdropping
threat is characterised by the tracking users, logging their application and even listening to
the conversations (Yu, Jin & Nahrstedt, 2016).