Digital communications in conjunction with the use of the modern internet have grown exponentially to the point that to communicate digitally has become an indispensable facet of everyday life. From cellphones, to netbooks to email, blogs and online portals, the transfer and exchange of electronic data controls the way many interact with each other and communicate both personally and for business. Now with the current trend moving towards “cloud” computing where all a persons or companies keep important documents stored and accessed online or in the “cloud”, cyber security has now become the number one priority of many.

Methods to protect data as encryption, antivirus software, firewalls, and access passwords have been around long before the modern day data revolution, but unfortunately none of such have grown as effective security solutions to accommodate the modern day modes of digital communication. Devices which can connect to the global data network or Internet, have become increasingly smaller and more intelligent. For example with just a modern cellphone, a person can access their email, post updates to blogs, and access personal or corporate documents all through the internet.

The typical security approach in the past has been based on the model to restrict access using firewall systems or detect intrusions as viruses using signature based scanning systems. All such solutions are based upon the concept to restrict, channel, hide and limit access to data. A firewall, for example, borrows its name from “fire retardent walls” which are designed to create safe areas where fire cannot pass because of the material from which they are constructed. In this case any external access that has not been deemed necessary to an internal or public network is considered fire and simply blocked. Antivirus solutions and the Virus signature model have also proven inadequate because of the turn around time required to update signature files and the amount of resources such systems use to scan 1000′s of files. It is like the concept of sending the police to everyones house in a city of millions of people to try and find where the bad guys are hiding. With modern computers containing several 1000 files, and the ever changing almost polymorphic nature of modern viruses, the signature based scanning model no longer is practical.

» Read more: A New Model For Cyber Security