Failure to implement proper network security or security procedures at large can affect users, computers and the public at large. As this can cause private information, company secrets, financial data, computer equipment’s, items of national security and trade secrets being exposed to unauthorized users.
Importance of computer security
Security helps to keep data and equipment safe by giving only the authorized users access to certain information. And this should be given the highest priority, because in an event of lapse everyone is affected. There are many factors that affect security and these include theft, loss, network intrusion or damage. Unauthorized use of a network can expose confidential information, and an attack that intentionally degrades the performance of a computer or network can also harm an organization’s or individual production.
There are mainly two types of computer security threats, which are typically physical and Data. A physical threat mainly involves the stealing, destroying or damaging equipment’s that are related to data storage. While data threats are events that involves gaining or denying access to, corrupting or stealing information from a company or individual. And these can further be divided into internal and external threats; the levels of destruction may differ greatly among the two categories.
Internal threat: subdivided into accidental and malicious threats. An accidental threat is where one unintentionally causes damage to the equipment or data, while a malicious threat is where one intentionally causes damage to data and equipment. This mostly involves people or individuals that already have access to the companies or individuals network, equipment or data.
External threat: mainly involves the use of different attacks in order to penetrate companies or individuals network, to gain access over the network and data stored on their servers. This is mostly associated with users that have no access to the network or resources, and the use of a series of pre-connection attacks, gaining access and post-connection attacks in order to penetrate companies or individual network.
Common computer threats
With the advancement of technology most threats against data, are constantly changing as hackers are finding new ways to gaining entry into people’s networks, websites and committing their desired crimes. Creating code with malicious intent and sending to different users. Often embedded or attached to software programs, images, documents and computer code. These are commonly known as viruses, and execute when the software program is run on a computer. Spreading and infecting other computers though emails, file transfer, instant messages and other mean of transfer between computers. With the capability to corrupt and delete computer files, even far worse when it erases your hard drive content.
There are many forms of viruses that are considered most deadly, but that doesn’t mean that other forms aren’t dangerous too. Take for example a stealthy virus that lays dormant after infecting a computer, and is only summoned when the attacker want to use it or a virus that records keystroke, makes it pretty hard for you to notice it and giving away sensitive or confidential information to the hacker. By the time you get to realized it, most of your bank information is gone. And I believe most people like to be hostile when it comes to such information.
Although worms don’t need to be attached to a program, they can be harmful as they self-replicate over the network, creating duplicates of its code. Hence, consuming most of your bandwidth, besides not harming data or applications. Although Trojan horses are technically worms, they are mostly hidden in software programs that tend to be doing one thing, while their actual intentions are to do something else behind the scene.
Preventive measures
The most common preventive measure is by doing regular computer maintenance. This helps in keeping your antivirus software up to date to quickly detect and disable harmful programs, and also prevent your antivirus from being outdated by applying recent updates and patches. Apart from the common viruses, worms and Trojans there are also adware, spyware and malware that are normally installed without the users consent, while downloading software’s from the internet. Adware software are normally displayed as internet adverts on a computer, while surfing and are distributed with downloaded software.
Spyware is similar to adware and are distributed without the user’s knowledge, and once installed it monitors user’s activities and sends the information to the hacker or organization responsible for the spyware. Most malware or grayware are phishing attacks that give hacker access to personal information, by persuading a user into unknowingly giving access to personal information through filling out of a form. There are many security threats out there that can cause seriously harm to organizations and individuals. As the value of data can cost five (5) times or more the cost of the equipment used to store the information, because information is power.
There are many forms that can be used to limit the loose of equipment and data at large. The use of cable lock with equipment and limiting access to the data storage room can minimize theft of hardware. While the use of password protection, data encryption, data backups and port protection to prevent unauthorized access to content or information.
Final thought
My worries gradually keeps on increasing as technology broadens at a vast speed. With the number of malicious users also increasing as each day that goes by. Advancing their methods of interception and penetration of data. Making me wonder, are updates going to keep up and protect my data or will they phase out at some point. Or will cyber security protect and detect any abnormal behavior from norms of social propriety. Feel free to share your thought in the comment section below about computer security and threats, your contributions will be highly valued.
While the internet is an amazing tool and can benefit in so many ways it is good to put a system in place that can help to protect against hackers who seek to get your personal information for their personal gain. It is good to know that there are programs that offer safety measures that can help to protect us.
Indeed it is a good thing that they are such software programs, that can protect us from hackers and our personal information at large.
Hi! I went through your article and I found it very helpful. Internet is very useful in recent days as it actually simplifies lives, but in the same way, through the internet corruption rate has increased rapidly. I think that as corruption increases, there should also be some tight ways of protecting our information from hackers using the same internet like always updating your anti-virus software as you mentioned earlier. Thanks for sharing this useful information with us.
Thank you for taking time reading through this article and leaving a comment behind. The internet has truly and remarkable improved our daily lives but at the same time, if security isn’t put in place we are vulnerable to hackers.
Your article on Computer Security – Mobile and Computer Safety made me fully aware of the issues that can occur with data hacking and hardware theft. When I began my working life, we only had manual typewriters, so I have seen technology progress at lightening speed. Since I joined the computer world and the internet, I have always taken care to have some sort of antivirus protection on my computer. Nevertheless, nothing is 100% secure. Thank you for this informative article.
You are more than welcome Jenni. Technology progress did move at a remarkable speed mostly during the late 90’s. And its still evolving at a faster rate. With this progress, security is a major concern and am more that happy to hear that you always do have a virus protection on your computer.
Hi Volkert!
Many people have become a victim for scams and viruses on our computers. It is important why we need to be precautious in what we open or add on our computers. This is why we need good security on our computers like Mcafee or Norton to scan and prevent installing damaging viruses. This will protect our computers and ourselves from having our information leaked.
Thank you so much for sharing this article with us and I wish you all the best!
Amzy
You are welcome Amzy. Mcaffee and Norton are good antivirus programs that can really do a great job in protect our information from damage or being leaked.
Thoughtful article. I have experienced trojans in the past, while they didn’t destroy the computer, the time and frustrations of removing them and trying to get back into all my password protected sites was painful.
Companies like PayPal are constantly on the lookout for new virus’s and hackers. (I had trouble there too, but it was resolved in my favor and done very quickly). if you have had any problems with finance sites, Banks, E-Bay, PayPal etc, they will check out any suspicious activity on your accounts very thoroughly.
This, to me gives me confidence in them knowing they at least have the resources to stay in front of the curve, and stall any hacking attempts that may slip through.
Trojans can really be frustrating if you get one into your computer. And the fact that they are normally disguised as legitimate software programs makes it a bit difficult to detect them fast. But if you do normally run your malware scanner on a regular bases its easy to detect and remove them. And that’s why its recommended to run maintenance on a regular bases. Feel free to check out (computer hardware maintenance) it has a component of software maintenance too.
Thank you for teaching me the differences between spyware, malware, worms, viruses, and trojan horses today. I always wondered what the differences were. The computer world is so big and hectic, just as I think I understand something then I just find out about “another something’ I don’t understand! I wish it would just slow down so I can catch up!
Thanks for the article.
You are most welcome Michell and am glad you found this piece of information useful. Its quiet unfortunate that the computer world can not slow down even for a second, cause each and everyday it keeps evolving. With new ideas or innovations being created. The only best thing you can do is to just keep up or specializing to a specific field.
Thanks so much for sharing a great article to learn more about Computer Security – Mobile and Computer Safety, as many are looking for a way to work from home, the internet opens a door for them, but we all need to learn more about how it works and the risks of sharing our personal and business data on the internet, it’s always good to learn more about how to protect ourselves and our online business, I’m always looking to learn more on this topic.
Hello Alejandra, its truly a great thing learning more about how to protect ourselves and businesses on the online market. As each and everyday that goes by, new technology is being developed and implemented on the internet. Others for the good while others for the bad. Just always keep in mind that security will always begin with you and don’t forget to backup everyday or weekly or even monthly.
This is such a key part of our lives. It is not enough to buy the machine m, we need to learn to keep safe using them and l think this is where things fall apart and many become victims of internet fraud.
You’ve got some useful breakdown of how things work.
This subject should be taught and mentioned wherever computers and internet are used. No one can avoid the various forms of fraud out there.
Everyone becomes a victim momentary after uploading personal information on the internet. As you don’t know what other user ends are thinking. It is best practice to use every means as possible to securing and protecting your data as possibly as you can. Cause security will always begin with you and what you upload on the internet.