The digital world represents a giant leap forward in efficiency and ease-of-use over the age of paper and pen. Every aspect of our lives, from education to matrimony, has a digital flavour. We begin and end each day with our favourite devices in our hands and are, truly, digital natives.

Such a digital world is possible only if we trust the technology it is built on and can count on it to deliver the results we want. Unfortunately, there are many who would like to subvert or destroy this trust. These adversaries are varied: some are troublemakers who just want to ruin another’s work; some are thieves who wish to profit from another’s loss; and some are nations who wish to wage digital war.

No matter their motivation, their methods are the same: attack/exploit weaknesses, known as vulnerabilities, in our digital ecosystem. Yes, the entire ecosystem is susceptible to attacks. Mobile phones can be attacked. Even DSLRs are vulnerable.  Such an attack is commonly known as a ‘virus’, but there are many different forms of cyberattacks/cyberthreats that are not viruses and the defence against such attacks has grown beyond just antivirus and is now known as cybersecurity. Let us examine a few of these threats:

• Virus – The classic cyberattack that gets its name from its ability to replicate and spread by infecting many victims, similar to a biological virus. The victims, in this case, could be machines, programs, or even files
• Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack – A hacker steps in between the sending and receiving devices to intercept communication and steal information, or even inject wrong information to be sent to the receiver
• Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) – Software that a user may not want that is often bundled with software that the user does want, which compromises the device’s security or the user’s privacy
• Malware – Any type of malicious software that includes viruses, but also covers worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, logic bombs, ransomware, etc.
• Drive-by-download – A malicious script on a website that installs malware on the site visitor’s device, often without them having to click or otherwise initiate the download
• Phishing – An attack that is aimed more at the user than the device, which uses social engineering to manipulate the user into revealing confidential information or installing malware
• Password Theft – Any method used to gain a user’s password, from guessing the password to stealing the password as it is typed or transmitted

The range and sophistication of cyberattacks grows by the day. Effective cybersecurity is imperative to maintaining the trust we place in digital technology and to conduct our lives without fear of devastating cyberthreats.

The Elements of Good Cybersecurity

We have established why cybersecurity is important. How it is implemented is equally important. There are 2 important elements that a cybersecurity solution should embody: Effectiveness & Efficiency.

Effectiveness is the ability to identify and protect against all cyberthreats. This is the primary consideration in evaluating cybersecurity as this is why we want cybersecurity. There are international agencies that test and rate cybersecurity products on how effective they are at detecting and protecting against a range of cyberthreats. Going beyond this, we know that new cyberthreats emerge every day and users may be vulnerable long before the software or hardware vendor is even aware of the exploit (known as zero-day attacks). The cybersecurity solution should be able to protect against such unknown threats.

K7 Security products are powered by the K7 Scanning Engine which has won numerous awards from international agencies including AV-Comparatives (Austria), AV-Test (Germany), and Virus Bulletin (UK) for its phenomenal threat-stopping power. K7 Security products are able to protect against unknown threats by identifying malicious operations through sophisticated behavioural analysis and blocking abnormal behaviour on the device. Our cybersecurity products are also enhanced with Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to flag and block emergent threats.

Efficiency is the ability to protect a device without consuming a significant portion of its digital resources in the process. A computer shouldn’t slow down and be unable to perform other operations when a malware scan is running. The download of virus definitions or product updates shouldn’t hog the available bandwidth and stop other data flow.

The K7 Scanning Engine is renowned for its efficiency, with its small footprint, blazing fast scans, and compact download size, and has been awarded for having the lowest impact on resources by AV-Comparatives.

Why K7 Security Is Your Best Choice

We are committed to securing your digital life and being the digital guardian you can count on to work, surf, bank and shop in complete confidence. Beyond just our award-winning scanning engine, you have many reasons to choose us:

• Multi-Device – We protect you on your preferred form factor, whether desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone
• Multi-Platform – We support Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, allowing you to enjoy using your preferred platform
• External Device Scanning – Any thumb drive or other data storage unit can be scanned for threats the moment it is plugged into your machine, before it can do any damage
• Malicious Website Protection – Malicious websites are blocked before the malicious code can load
• Deep Domain Expertise – We have more than 27 years of experience in cybersecurity to draw on when creating our cybersecurity products
• Widely Trusted – We have a 25 Million+ client base across 100 countries
• Made in India – We are the only 100% Made in India cybersecurity provider with our own, indigenously developed scan engine

Learn more about cybersecurity products here, or Contact Us for more information on how we can help you be cybersafe.