Cyber attacks and breaches in cyber security rarely occupy the minds of the everyday citizen. While it’s, of course, important to keep up to date on passwords, have physical backups, and to have a general awareness, most people assume their digital resources will stay secure. Now more than ever this is starting to change.
On an average day in March 2022, more than six billion cyber attacks were attempted worldwide in just 24 hours. These tend to happen on a scale that most people will never experience, cyber war being a new occurrence that happens alongside physical invasions. The most recent and relevant example being the war in Ukraine, both for territory and through the web.
These attacks are no joke either, while some may be minor breaches in privacy and data management, many more have prominent real world effects. Things like bursted pipelines, downed power grids, and destroyed storage facilities are just a few of the real world examples. This is where the real danger of cyber attacks lies, in the large scale attacks countries may wage on one another.
That’s not to say that the average citizen should not prioritize their own cyber security. It is instead to say that, like most things, the national governmental level state of security should also be considered. The easiest way to be protected as a citizen is for a government to do the protecting beforehand.
This is where countries like the U.S thrive, rated commonly as the most cyber secure country. Although only 19% of U.S citizens are totally confident the U.S could protect against large scale cyber warfare. These are just a few of the considerations that have to be made in the modern world. As technology rises in prominence, so do attacks on that same technology. This is the rise of cyber attack prominence.
