2. Computers….Most of us have computers at home or at work, as part
of our life today. We love to play games, to read news, watch TV shows and
paying bills, sending e-mail or communicating around the world; basically all
our needs are based on the use of this machine that we call computer.
Navigating everyday through new sites for our needs, sometimes it means
that we may get our computer “sick”, accidentally or not. Most of the time
unfortunately is not accidentally. Our personal information is …flying in the
wrong hands.
3. Exactly as in the case of a human body, our dear machine can get
sick when is infected; without our help, our computer can’t get
back on track. But, why my machine is getting “sick”? Becoming
infected, a system will no longer work properly and the
information could “fly” easily.
Let’s try to figure out what and why our lovely machines are
suffering from…
4.
5. TYPES OF VIRUSES
Viruses
Worms
Trojan horses
Malware
According to Microsoft.com (2012) on its article “Computer
viruses” we have many types of viruses; “Some overwrite
existing code or data. Others include the ability to recognize
whether an executable file is already infected.” A few example
of computer viruses gave by the Microsoft (2012) are:
a. Resident viruses that are installing themselves as a part of
operating system before the execution of an infected host
program.
b. Stealth viruses are a resident virus is a resident virus that
attempts to evade detection by concealing its presence in
infected files.
6.
7. There are some well-known viruses today. Caverson (2010)
indicated on his article Types Of Computer Viruses that there are
six broad categories of computer viruses:
• Boot sector virus
• File infection virus
• Multipartite virus
• Network virus
• E-mail virus
• Macro virus.
Each type of virus is “specialized” to attack a different part of
our computer, becoming a cyber-crime.
8.
9. • As Witman (2012) states “ A computer virus consist of
segments of code that perform malicious actions.”
• These are just some types of computer infections that
becomes a global concern today, affecting and
influencing the lives of people, businesses and global
economies. Those are used for malicious actions,
stealing any kind of information and becoming a global
concern.
The main purpose of the computer viruses is to gain up
information such financial or personal information; to
destroy and steal data from a computer. How a virus can do
that? Mainly, through e-mail attachments, software
downloads and web scripting.
10. • All of us know now that once a computer got infected, a
virus have the ability to replicate itself and then the
virus is passed from one machine to an another machine
through data transmission such as e-mails, physical
media, etc.
• The effects of viruses are huge if we take for example an
organization. Loosing or getting their data compromised
may cause losing customers and revenue. Slowing down
computers and corrupting system files, damaging the
boot sector, interrupting the Internet connections etc. are
just a few examples of the viruses’ effects on our
computer and systems.
11. • As Baldauf define it “ A hacker as an individual who
subverts computer security without authorization.”
we can understand now who and why we are
fighting against.
• “People who use and create computer software to
gain access to information illegally.” (Whitman &
Mattord, 2012)
Therefore, hackers are people who spend a while to
study the systems that are targeted, use specific skills
or fraud to go around those controls placed around the
information that is own by somebody else.
12.
13. • Black-hat hackers : takes advantages of security
vulnerabilities to gain unlawful access to private
networks
• White-hat hackers: hack into networks in order to
call attention to flaws in security so that they can be
fixed.
• Gray-hat hackers: a hacker of questionable ethics.
Baldauf & Stair ( 2011)
14. Protection software:
1. Anti-virus software- Norton, Kasperky, Avast,
McAfee
2. Firewalls
3. Anti-Adware/Spyware
4. Cookie Management
These are just a few examples of protection tools ;
each software is meant for different tasks.
15. Over the years online threats use to grow up becoming
more sophisticated. Attackers are using new methods
to penetrate a system, targeting real assets for real
money. As a response the IT people from any
organization are facing new challenges and they are
focusing on creating new and powerful defense
systems that detects intrusion. One of this security
tools is known as honeypots; these honeypots, as
Whitman & Mattord (2012) states, are something like a
decoy systems or traps that are catching up attackers
and keep them away from critical systems.
16. Once we have established a layer of protection for our
computer or our network, using the latest technological
tools, then the outcome is huge. Personal information,
business data even national security for each country
will become much stronger and safer.
Just thinking about a business, the outcome is
immense; there will be just an acceptable loss for
example, assumed by the business.
As a remember, we cannot eliminate the risk of such
attack, but we can significantly reduce them.
17. Becoming a global world, cyber-crime has been
growing up becoming more sophisticated; attackers are
using new methods to penetrate a system , targeting
real assets for real money.
Using the right technological tools to protect us against
such threats and creating new powerful defense
software it only can be beneficial for everybody.
The exposure to confidential information and
providing access only to authorized users are two very
important outcomes.
18. As we can see, cyber-crime becomes a global problem
today. I would define this as a war between technologies
that is affecting and influencing the lives of people.
Computer and system information security is a very
important aspect regarding an organization and any
individual as well. It is not an easy task for an
organization’s IT to fight and to combat threats as viruses
that are harmful and may conduct to a temporary or even a
closure of the activity, especially in a global environment.
It is our own responsibility to do everything possible to
detect and defense us against acts like illegalities, immoral
or unethical behavior that may occur and to use all the tools
that will protect information and systems, with the respect
of the law.
19. 1. Baldauf, Kenneth, Ralph M. Stair. Succeeding With
Technology. 4th Edition. Delmar, 2014-01-15
2. Caverson , J. (2010). Types Of Computer Viruses. Retrieved
on June 19, 2013 from
http://caverson.hubpages.com/hub/Types-Of-Computer-
Viruses
3. Microsoft (2012) Computer viruses. Retrieved on June 20,
2013 from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc505929.aspx
4. Whitman, M.E., & Mattord, H. (2012) Principles of
information security. (fourth ed.) Boston, MA: Course
Technology
