The Five Laws of Cybersecurity

I'd like you to consider for a moment that the about 6,900 languages spoken on our planet daily, and these thousands of language serve thousands of cultures, from the smallest community to the largest continent.

Now even with this vast diversity among our global population, we have some alternative languages and methods for communication that are understood by everybody. For example, the has mathematics; if I have one apple and somebody gives me another apple, I will have two apples.

This is understood worldwide without fail. Now, as of today the largest culture by far is that of the internet user with 6.6 billion humans on earth, around 3.6 billion of us are online and communicating with each other and institution daily. Thus another common language we all share but most don't realize is the networking protocols that the internet runs on and the social media platforms that tie us together plus the emojis. But what our internet culture tends to lack is a common understanding to foster true understanding of cybersecurity and threats online.

Outside of hardcore cybersecurity and IT people like myself most people don't understand the language that is nerd. And so it my job to be the best nerd-to-English translator I can in order to help the world stay safe online.

Here are 5 laws of cybersecurity that are designed to do just that.

Law Number 1;  If There is a Vulnerability, It will be Exploited 

Consider for a moment that when the first bank was conceived of and built there was at least one person out there who thought "I want to rob that ".  In the modern era since the first computer bug was discovered hackers good and bad have been looking for ways to get around the laws and framework that govern a computer system, a program or even our society in general. 

There are those out there who will literally try and hack anything within their capability. This cloud be the basic exploit like the person who figured out how to cover their car's license plate to go through an automatic tollbooth for free or cloud be more obscure such as infecting a complex computer network to derail an entire illegal nuclear weapon program which actually happened in the mid-2000s.

Finding ways around everything for both good and bad purposes is so ubiquitous today, we even have a term for it: life hacking 

Law Number 2; Everything Is Vulnerable In Someway 

We cannot assume that everything is safe nor is anything off the table for hacking anymore. We've seen a series of massive breaches by corporations that literally spend millions annually on cyber defence strategies from enormous retailers to gigantic health insurance providers, these corporations hold millions of records on virtually everyone in the united states and fall under multiple government-compliance laws for data security. 

We can go straight out of the left-field or even more obscure. For example; for decades we assumed our computer processor are safe and harmless just doing the job that they were meant to do. In the begging of 2018, it was discovered that these technological world horses are carrying a serious mass of vulnerability that will allow a malicious hacker to wreak havoc on all of us. From minor to major .Law number 2 is really inescapable.

Law number 3; Human Trust Even When They Shouldn't 

We need trust in our lives, we can't have a society without it and we have a positive expectation of our technology and those people that help us with it. We expect the light switch is going to flip on the light when it turns on, we expect the mechanic we pay to fix our car to actually fic it and not rip us off. 

But we have to question the technological infrastructure and online people around us. This is our greatest vulnerability in cybersecurity. Now because of trust people fall for phishing scams they believed the $20 anti-virus they bought for their computer will turn it into fort Knox. 

They also believed the form they're filling online is legitimate and it sounds weird to say that we have to combat trust but we have to if we're are going to survive the nonstop hacking that takes place. And with this, we can move to lAW nUMBER 4

Law number 4; With Innovation Cames Opportunity For Exploitation 

The world is full of brilliant people: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and made the world a whole lot smaller, Bill Gate created a global computer operating system that got humanity on the same technological page, Mark Zuckerberg created a social media platform used by billions daily to share our lives.

However with this evolution in innovation and our technology come certain exploits. Now we live in the age of IoT or internet of things and by virtue of this, our lives have hopefully been made a little easier news, unique, innovative products are constantly being made to help us live in our homes or drive our cars or even improve our health. 

However one of the biggest examples of innovation exploitation is IoT hacking. In 2016 a virus known as Mirai infected millions of IoT devices worldwide and then weaponized them against targets creating some of the largest bandwidth attacks the internet has ever seen. As the world continues to develop and create  amazing new technologies we cannot forget the lesson  of law Number 4

Law Number 5; When In Doubt See Law No. 1

If there is a vulnerability it will be exploited .every single issue with cybersecurity and our technology steams form a vulnerability of some kind. If we ever forget this, we are doing nothing but asking for trouble. 

Our ability to properly defend ourselves comes from understanding that human nature itself makes these laws immutable. And when we start thinking like a hacker is when we can actually stop them.

So here's our new common language that hopefully helps us and the world stay safe online