You often hear people discussing about security with computers and also about cyber security. I teach courses in security and cyber security with the new program I am teaching being cyber security. The question many people have is what is cyber security and is it different than computer security?

Cyber security is generally though of as how do we make our computer communications more secure. It is getting into stopping people from doing damage and destruction using the Internet or a network to do the damage. It in turn also bumps into computer security as the goal of the cyber criminals is normally to steal data/information (or damage information or data) that is located on various computers including servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Cyber security is trying to stop the bad people before they get in your network or computer, or when they do get in to limit the damage and to make repairs. Part of this is keeping the networks and computers secure.

Computer security is often considered to be more of just protecting the equipment and not working with the communications side of Information technology.

Obviously these two areas are not a simple black and white issue, but are actually a lot off gray and overlap. They goal by both groups is to keep your data/information safe and to keep the bad guys out of your computers and networks and not allow them to steal the data/information.

Both areas are constantly changing and there are always new and better ways to make safer, but the inverse is true also. The bad people are trying just as hard (some would say harder) to find new ways to manage to steal data/information and to damage computers and networks.

The good people are often called white hackers and the bad people are often called black hackers