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It's very easy to think that hackers are only interested in gaining access to corporate business networks and confidential information. However there is an ever increasing trend for hackers to select "soft targets" for their own personal or criminal gain. A hacker gaining access to your PC through the world wide web (www), local area network (LAN) or desktop login could soon ascertain many personal details about you, such as name, address, bank account and credit card details enough information to enable fraudulent activity. With the ever increasing use of peer to peer network sharing application among other online techniques to gain control of your PC, a more sinister aspect worth considering is that if a hacker can use your hard disk drive to store files and information; these could be of an illegal nature. To order, or discuss your requirements please call 0208 123 2703 to speak an advisor or contact us. Internet Based Threats Most Internet based threats fall into two categories: on-line marketing and fraud. Fraud Threats These are focused on either stealing your identity or bank account numbers. They are designed to steal money from your accounts or to buy merchandise using your credit card.
Marketing Threats Unsolicited bulk email. What you can do: Spam filtering at your email provider and on your local PC. Derived from the infamous ancient Greek “Trojan Horse” story which invaded the city of Troy. A trojan is seemingly innocent software that contains a hidden agenda.
Capturing sensitive information such as credit card numbers, account numbers, or passwords by saving all input to the keyboard. This is like having someone look over your shoulder at an ATM machine.
A fraudulent activity where bad guys send you email disguised to look reputable asking for personal information, usually bank account numbers. Once they have your numbers they will attempt to steal your identity or steal funds from your accounts. Protecting yourself from Internet threats
Your antivirus software should be updated frequently. We update ours every hour. Also, use a product that has a real-time protector which will prevent known malicious software from being executed. We recommend Sophos Antivirus, Norton Antivirus and McAfee Antivirus are the most popular version because they tend to be distributed by OEMs such as Dell on new PCs. It's a good idea to have more than one antivirus program because no one product will identify every virus variant. Install Anti-Spyware such as SpyBot Search & Destroy or Ad-Aware and keep it updated. Don't rely on software firewalls alone. Software firewalls are only as good as the OS they run on. It's highly likely that your firewall can be compromised by Spyware or Trojans without your knowledge. This opens your system to other infections while it appears that you are well protected. Stop using insecure programs. The two biggest security risks in most PCs today are Internet Explorer (Internet browser) and Outlook/Outlook Express (email client). Because of the ubiquity of these programs on nearly every PC and also their known security vulnerabilities these programs are targeted by nefarious programmers. It's possible to get infected simply by visiting a malicious website or by receiving a malicious email attachment. You don't even have to click, open, or install anything to compromise your PC. To help protect yourself try operating a outside the mainstream by using different software. We recommend using Mozilla Firefox or Opera for Internet browsing. We also recommend using Mozilla Thunderbird as your email client. You should also make sure your email provider has antivirus and anti-spam checking software on their servers. The best way to keep from having problems is to keep them from getting to your PC. For further details about computer security contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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This is a software program that hijacks your computer's connection to the Internet by intercepting your requests for particular websites or other online resources. Most spyware is used to gain a profile of your Internet habits so that you can be targeted for advertising (think pop-up ads). For instance, if your PC is infected with spyware when you ask for the web page www.cnn.com the request is first sent to the spyware's collection server where it is logged before you are sent to website. Besides being able to collect any personal data you may be transmitting in that request, it also can significantly slow your Internet experience because of the redirection overhead. What you can do: Use an alternative web browser such as Mozilla FireFox or Netscape Navigator as your primary Internet browser instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer and never click on a software installation agreement without reading it.
Make sure your Operating Systems (OS) is up-to-date with all available security patches. If you are using Windows 95/98/ME then you should consider replacing your OS immediately. These OSes are at their supported End-of-Life so Microsoft will no longer issue security updates for them. We recommend using Windows XP, Apple Mac OSX or one of the many varieties of Linux (ie: Mandrake, Fedora Core, Suse).