Translators Play a Role in Cyber-Security Today
One of the biggest concerns today is how secure your personal or business data is once it has been uploaded somewhere on the internet. Improvements have been made over the years to help ensure confidential information cannot be accessed by others, but because so much found on the net is in a different language from one’s own it is difficult to differentiate if something is a security risk or a cybercrime. Companies continue to improve apps and devices that access the net by making them more secure, but it appears this has just given rise to more sophisticated methods of bypassing security and infiltrating personal and company details including accessing funds.
Security on the web helped by translations
Today, the web has turned out to be a one-stop-shop for much of what we buy and want to access. There are times when a website written in a foreign language needs to be decoded and translated so the audience is sure there is nothing malicious about the content and it doesn’t pose a security risk.
How translators help where and when they can
There are advertisements or content out on the web that is coded in different languages. Translators can help the cybersecurity experts to understand different languages on websites and applications to ensure no one is under threat from unscrupulous behavior.
The increase in cyber-attacks that are shaking countries throughout the world has resulted in a surge in the demand for translations in the field of cyber-security. The targeted languages of a cyber-security practitioner include, quite surprisingly, languages like Danish. In 2017 alone, surveys have revealed that there were 71,500 English translations related to cyber-security. This was an increase of more than 280 percent from the previous year. Danish was the top language, followed in order by German, French, Simplified Mandarin, Italian, Dutch, Russian and Japanese. There were also translations conducted in Turkish, Portuguese, the Brazilian variety, traditional Mandarin and Spanish of Latin America.
The increase in the demand for translations related to cyber-security into Danish is directly connected with the marked increase in cyber-security threats in Denmark since the start of 2017. The Danish Defence Minister during that time warned that Danish energy infrastructure and hospitals had been exposed to Russian cyber warfare. In April 2017, the Danish Cybersecurity center in Denmark revealed that Danish Defence and Foreign and Ministries servers and e-mail accounts were constantly the subjects of cyber-attacks. Another well known Danish cyber crime took place at the finish of 2017 and was called the “Petya” ransomware cyber attack. This completely paralyzed Maersk, a logistics giant and the Danish transport operations.
Increase in Dutch cyber-security translations
There has in recent years been a marked increase in demand for cyber-security translations into Dutch. This was due to the Global Threat Intelligence Report which was published in the middle of 2017 by NTT Security. The report calculated that 38 percent of phishing attacks around the world originated in the Netherlands. There were also attacks by Turkish hackers on key Dutch websites like Rumag, NL Times, and Versio sites. These attacks may explain the increase in translations for Dutch cyber-security.
Japanese and Russia at risk of cyber attacks
As well as Denmark and the Netherlands, Japan is not new to cyberattacks on key companies. At least 600 targets were struck by the huge WannaCry ransomware that affected no less than 200,000 computers spread across in 150 countries in mid-2017. The attack was so bad that Honda Motors was forced to close temporarily the operations near Tokyo of its Sayama Automobile Plant. This plant manufactures the Honda Accord, Step Wagon and Odyssey vehicles. This led to an increase in demand for translators so that the cyberattacks could be decoded and analyzed.
One of the biggest translations related to issues of cyber-security was the translation of English to Russian when a Russian cyber-security business reported a big “Petya” ransomware attack that had struck key Russian targets. This included banks, airports, and Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer. Also, Kaspersky, the Russian cyber-security business, revealed that Russian computer operations including at least 1,000 computers situated in the Interior Ministry, were struck more than any other systems worldwide by the WannaCry cyber-attack.
These examples stress how important cyber-security translations are when systems get attacked and countries want to translate key information about the attack into their own language.
