Engineers are people who specialize in inventing, designing, analyzing, building, and testing machines, systems, structures, or gadgets. The goal is to do all of that in the most practical and efficient way possible while also being safe and not breaking the bank. When I think of engineers, I do not initially think of them as people who take part in the cyber world, but they do. Engineers contribute and make the cyber world safer by creating solutions for cybersecurity issues, framing and installing firewalls and intrusion detection systems, and performing penetration testing.

A firewall is a network security system that monitors, manages, and controls network traffic. The firewall is a barrier, or wall, that keeps trusted internal networks and untrusted external networks separate. Having a firewall in place protects your sensitive data from hackers trying to steal all they can from you. So, when engineers configure and install firewalls into cyber networks, everyone involved is safe. It is much more difficult for your information to get stolen. Some common firewall examples are web application firewalls, database firewalls, next-generation firewalls, and cloud firewalls.

Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are similar to firewalls because they also monitor network traffic and search for threats or suspicious activity. These systems block the threats and suspicious activities which in return, keeps all sensitive data safe. Some examples of IDS are network intrusion systems, host intrusion systems, signature-based intrusion systems, and anomaly-based intrusion systems.

Lastly, engineers perfume penetration testing. Penetration testing is when a cyberattack is simulated to see where a computer system is lacking and more vulnerable. This is important to do because if you do not know where you are vulnerable, you do not know how to fix it which puts everyone at risk.