The treat of online security: How safe is our data?

The world is kept on changing rapidly and improving every minute, many things can be done easily by using internet. Nowadays, computer has become part of our life no matter is a student or worker even housewife also will using computer to spend their leisure time.

Computer has became the best place to store our data and information but it also raise the issue that hacker who create virus or tools to hack into company’s computer in order to get those confidential data. Normally, the hackers will spread viruses through e-mail attachment and those viruses are being hid by hacker inside the documents. In fact, visiting the site may also attacked by the virus. Those viruses can be categorized into Trojan horse, worm, spy ware and etc.

Many internet users display more of their personal information on social networking web sites, and office workers upload more sensitive data to online software programs, it makes computer hackers devise small attacks that can fly under the radar of traditional security software to pry that information loose. As a result, the personal information of the users may be embezzled and the undisclosed financial data may be stolen by hackers because those intellectual properties can be sold for a lot of money.

Even if you connected to the internet only to play games or send email to friends and family, your computer may be a target. It is because hackers or crackers may be able to cause damage to your computer by changing your data or reformatting your hard drive. Also, some software applications have default settings that allow other users to access your computer. For example, web browsers could allow someone to place harmful programs on your computer that run when you click on them.

On my opinion, users should be careful when access to internet and do not simply give away any sensitive personal information like account number, log-in information via e-mail or instant message or password. This blog may affect your confidence to the online transaction, but if we properly safeguard our data, the security of internet is still considering as reasonably secured.

References:
Major Online Security Threats.
http://www.net-security-training.co.uk/major-online-threats.html