Fundamentals of cyber security - AQAMethods to detect & prevent cyber security threats

The security methods used to access computer accounts are known as factors of authentication. These are ways to prove that people are who they say they are. These factors can be divided into three sections:

• something a person is - fingerprint or other biometric detail
• something a person knows - passwords, PINs, secret answers
• something a person has - a phone, a smart card

Biometrics

Biometric security makes use of unique physical characteristics and features to identify people when they are using a computer system. This form of security could be a scan of a fingerprint using the sensor built into a button on a mobile phone, or facial recognition to unlock a mobile device.

Passwords

Keeping passwords safe is important, especially when the password allows access to sensitive or valuable information. Some password systems help to keep passwords safe by only asking for certain characters of a password instead of the whole thing. This helps to prevent spyware like keyloggers from stealing passwords.

CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA forms challenge humans to prove that they are indeed human. Computers are very good at looking at text and numbers, but people are much better at understanding images.

Basic CAPTCHA forms often ask people to type in the words they see in a picture. More sophsicated tests may ask people to solve a puzzle, for example, finding all of the images that contain cats in a gallery of animals.

Email confirmations

When a person signs up for a new account, they often receive an email asking them to confirm that they asked for the account to be created by clicking a specific link.

This security feature alerts them that their email is being used to create an account and acts as a way for them to prove their identity to the company they are creating the account with.

Automatic software updates

By regularly updating the software on a computer, users are as protected as they can possibly be.

Setting automatic updates means a computer system will attempt to install patches or fixes as soon as they are available by searching for them on a regular basis. If this task was left to users, it would be easier for them to forget or ignore the updates.