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Accreditation:

Joe Robson is the owner of the world famous Newbie Club at http://newbieclub.com and the creator of the best selling Computer Security Course called "The PC and Internet Security Kit" at http://newbieclub.com/security

Computer Vulnerability - The Harsh Truth

by Joe Robson http://joerobson.com
Today, many people rely on computers to do homework, work, and create or store useful information. Therefore, it is important for the information on the computer to be stored and kept properly. It is also extremely important for you to protect your computer from data loss, misuse, and abuse.

For example, it is crucial for businesses to keep information they have secure so that hackers can’t access the information.

Home users also need to take means to make sure that their credit card numbers are secure when they are participating in online transactions.

    Some Terminology explained:

  • A computer security risk:
    is any action that could cause lost of information, software, data, processing incompatibilities, or cause damage to computer hardware, a lot of these are planned to do damage. An intentional breach in computer security is known as a computer crime which is slightly different from a cybercrime.
  • A cybercrime:
    is known as illegal acts based on the internet and is one of the FBI’s top priorities. There are several distinct categories for people that cause cybercrimes, and they are refereed as hacker, cracker, cyberterrorist, cyberextortionist, unethical employee, script kiddie and corporate spy.
  • Hacker:
    was actually known as a good word but now it has a very negative view. A hacker is defined as someone who accesses a computer or computer network unlawfully. They often claim that they do this to find leaks in the security of a network.
  • Cracker:
    has never been associated with something positive. This refers to someone who intentionally accesses a computer or computer network for evil reasons. It’s basically an evil hacker. They access it with the intent of destroying, or stealing information.
  • Note: Both crackers and hackers are very advanced with network skills.
  • A cyberterrorist:
    is someone who uses a computer network or the internet to destroy computers for political reasons. It’s just like a regular terrorist attack because it requires highly skilled individuals, millions of dollars to implement, and years of planning.
  • A cyberextortionist:
    is someone who uses emails as an offensive force. They would usually send a company a very threatening email stating that they will release some confidential information, exploit a security leak, or launch an attack that will harm a company’s network. They will request a paid amount to not proceed sort of like black mailing in a since.
  • An unethical employee:
    is an employee that illegally accesses their company’s network for numerous reasons. One could be the money they can get from selling top secret information, or some may be bitter and want revenge.
  • A script kiddie:
    is someone who is like a cracker because they may have the intentions of doing harm, but they usually lack the technical skills. They are usually silly teenagers that use pre written hacking and cracking programs.
  • A corporate spy:
    has extremely high computer and network skills and is hired to break into a specific computer or computer network to steal or delete data and information. Shady companies hire these type people in a practice known as corporate espionage. They do this to gain an advantage over their competition an illegal practice. Business and home users must do their best to protect or safeguard their computers from security risks.

Let's discuss some pointers to help protect your computer. However, you must remember that there is no one hundred percent guarantee way to protect your computer so becoming more knowledgeable about them is a must during these days.

When you transfer information over a network it has a high security risk compared to information transmitted in a business network because the administrators usually take some extreme measures to help protect against security risks. Over the internet there is no powerful administrator which makes the risk a lot higher.

If you're not sure if your computer is vulnerable to a virus or Spyware risk, then you can always use some type of online security service which is a website that checks your computer for email and Internet vulnerabilities. Search Google for this.

However it's not cheap and may be too expensive for 'ordinary' PC users. But there are inexpensive alternatives available one of the best of which is 'The PC and Internet Security Kit' at http://newbieclub.com/security Actually this is not software but a fully detailed course on how to protect yourself with high quality software that is available for NOTHING!

The typical network attacks that put computers at risk include viruses, worms, spoofing, Trojan horses, and denial of service attacks. Every unprotected computer is vulnerable to a computer virus which is a potentially harming computer program that infects a computer negatively and altering the way the computer operates without the user’s consent. Once the virus is in the computer it can spread throughout infecting other files and potentially damaging the operating system itself.

It’s similar to a bacteria virus that infects humans and spreads to other parts of the body causing pain and damage. In both cases, prevention is better than cure.

  • A computer worm:
    is a program that repeatedly copies itself and is very similar to a computer virus. However the difference is that a virus needs to attach itself to an executable file and become a part of it. A computer worm doesn’t need to do that. It sends copies to itself and to other networks and eats up a lot of bandwidth.
  • A Trojan Horse:
    is named after the famous Greek legend and is used to describe a program that secretly hides and actually looks like a legitimate program but is a fake. A certain action usually triggers the Trojan horse, and unlike viruses and worms they don’t replicate themselves.
Computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses are all classifies as malicious-logic programs which are just programs that deliberately harms a computer. Although these are the common three there are many more variations and it would be almost impossible to list them. You know when a computer is infected by a virus, worm, or Trojan horse if one or more of the following unnerving things happen, and screen shots of weird messages or pictures appear.

Weird messages and alerts caused by viruses and Spyware:

  • You have less available memory then you expected
  • Music or sounds plays randomly.
  • Files get corrupted.
  • Programs and files don’t work properly if at all.
  • Unknown files or programs randomly appear
  • System properties fluctuate
Computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses deliver their payload or instructions through four common ways:
  1. When an individual runs an infected program. So if you download a lot of things you should always scan the files before executing, especially executable files.
  2. When an individual runs an infected program.
  3. When an individual boots a computer with an infected drive. So that’s why it’s important to not leave media files in your computer when you shut it down.
  4. When it connects an unprotected computer to a network.
Today, a very common way that people get a computer virus, worm, or Trojan horse is when they open up an infected file through an email attachment.

There are literally thousands of computer malicious logic programs and new one comes out every day, so that’s why it’s important to keep up to date with new ones, and keep updating your anti-virus programs.

There is no known method for completely protecting a computer or computer network from computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, but people can take several precautions to significantly reduce their chances of being infected by one of those malicious programs.

Whenever you start a computer you should have no removable media in the drives. This goes for CD, DVD, and floppy disks.

When your computer starts up it tries to execute a boot sector on the drives and even if it’s unsuccessful any given various on the boot sector can infect the computer’s hard disk. If you must start the computer this way for a particular reason, such as the hard disk failing and you are trying to reformat the drive, make sure the disk is not infected.

Joe Robson