Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is everything people and organizations do to keep their computers, networks and data safe from attack and misuse. It covers a lot of ground: passwords and two-factor authentication, encryption, firewalls, software updates, backups, training people to spot phishing, and the teams who watch for intruders.

A classic way to think about it is three goals. Confidentiality: only the right people can see the information (your medical record, a company's plans). Integrity: nobody can change it without permission (your bank balance, a hospital's dosage). Availability: it is there when needed (the online banking site, the hospital's systems during an emergency). Most attacks break at least one: a data leak breaks confidentiality, ransomware breaks availability, a forged transfer breaks integrity.

Security is not a product you install once. It is technology plus people plus habits, and attackers usually go for the weakest of the three, which is often a person tricked by a convincing message. That is why frameworks like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework organize the work as a cycle: understand what you have, protect it, detect problems, respond and recover. For an individual, a few habits cover most of the risk: updates on, a password manager, 2FA on important accounts and a backup.