Information Security vs Cybersecurity – What Does your Business Need

If you are surprised by that title, you are not alone. Cybersecurity and Information Security are often treated as synonyms. Even though they differ in the scopes, they are so similar in purpose that these two terms are used interchangeably even by experts in the digital world. This can be troublesome if you’re a business owner trying to figure out the best protective strategies for your information assets. To help you out, our cybersecurity team from Perth have created a simple guide on Information Security vs Cybersecurity, and what your business needs.

What is Information Security?

As the name suggests, Information Security refers to securing valuable assets such as business data, individual records, and copyrights information. To put it simply, it is the act of safeguarding your data irrespective of its form.

Information Security practices aim to protect the confidentiality and integrity of your data. The most critical aspects of Information Security are guarding against data destruction or improper modification of data, protecting personal privacy, preserving the implemented restrictions while ensuring reliable access to authorised entities.

Examples for Information Security methods include enabling procedural controls that detect and minimise risks, access controls that establish restrictions on accessing company information, technical controls such as MFA and firewalls, and compliance controls to abide by the privacy laws while enforcing security requirements.

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity can be defined as the ability to defend electronic or digital data from cyberattacks. Here, the focus is on safeguarding the information stored in your computers, mobile devices, servers, and networks.

Cybersecurity practices aim to protect data from intruders both inside and outside your organisation. The intrusions can come in the form of unauthorised access, hacks, and large-scale attacks. The Cybersecurity framework is built on identifying critical digital data, the risks of data breach and technology to protect it.

Using strong passwords, encrypting communications, installing antivirus software, and creating backups are the standard Cybersecurity methods that all businesses implement to protect their data. You can learn more about Cybersecurity here.

Information Security vs Cybersecurity

To implement proper, adequate controls, you need to be aware of the most critical data for your business. Both Information Security and Cybersecurity strategies take into consideration the value of an asset. While these two forms of data security have the same result, i.e., protect your data, they are different in scope.

The primary concern in a Cybersecurity strategy is guaranteeing protection against unauthorised access to data. On the other hand, the motive behind creating an Information Security strategy is security the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of said data.

Cybersecurity professionals focus on protecting electronic data in servers, endpoints, databases, and networks by dealing with security gaps and other vulnerabilities. Information Security experts are associated with protecting data present in any form on the internet and physically. In fact, Cybersecurity can be considered as a sub-section of Information Security.

What should you choose for your business?

Cyberspace is advancing and expanding at fast rates and quickly becoming an integral component of commerce as a whole. As more and more businesses are becoming digital-focused, there arises the question of data security. The golden question here is should you go for a Cybersecurity-focused strategy or an Information Security-focused strategy?

And the answer is – the Information Security vs Cybersecurity approach is wrong. These two forms of data security are, in fact, complementary. Which tactic you should implement at each step of your data security protection structure depends on what data you want to protect and where it resides.

For example, protecting a customer’s credit card numbers, whether stored digitally or as physical copies, is a task for the Information Security professionals while preventing data breaches in your application would be the responsibility of Cybersecurity professionals. In short, both these groups will have to work with each other to ensure that your most critical data is kept safe. A fusion between Cybersecurity and Information Security will guarantee the best possible protection for your databases.

Using encryption for emails, implementing password protocols, MFA, restricting access based on task roles, locking important documents, installing antivirus software, and creating backups are all steps your business should take to improve data security.

The Information Security vs Cybersecurity concept may be surprising for most people – data and its storage have become so digital, that information has come to mean information online. These two forms of security are both integral parts of a business security strategy. You’ll need the assistance of both Cybersecurity professionals and Information Security experts to divide and secure various aspects of your enterprise. If you require the assistance of an experienced team to help enhance your data security strategies, we have your back. Contact us or email us at Cybersecurity@computingaustralia.group for the latest and efficient digital solutions.

MFA: Multi-factor authentication is an authentication method that requires a user to present two or more verifying factors to be granted access to a website or application.
Encryption: Encryption refers to encoding information so that only authorised parties can decode it.