Computer Security

Computer security has become a big issue for major organizations, but what about the ordinary person with a personal computer at home. A personal computer is use to make life easier by paying bills on-line, keeping track of personal information and allowing the average person a way to do personal business or purchases. So has life become easier by using the computer to handle those day to day routines? Many would agree that it has made life somewhat easier, but what about the dangers of storing personal information. The fact is that there are many types of computer security threats for those using a personal computer. I will explain many types of threats and the way they are employ to access information on a computer system.

The first threat is adware and the purpose of adware is not always a bad threat, but it does gather data on your web browsing without your consent. Also adware can slow your computer down by loading advertisements and can make your computer unstable. The next threat is called a backdoor Trojan. This threat allows someone to take control of a computer over the internet without the user permission. The backdoor Trojan can be deployed on the user computer by opening a link in spam mail. One of the first threats was the boot sector virus which was deployed on a computer by booting a computer by an infected disk. The boot sector is not a very common threat and is rarely encountered today. Another threat is the browser hijacker. You can encounter this threat from some websites. The browser hijacker runs a script that changes the settings in your browser. Some hijackers edit the windows registry so that the hijacked settings are restored every time you start your computer. This brings us to the (DOS) Denial of service, in this threat the hacker attempts to overload or shut down a computer, so that the user can no longer access it. The method of employment involves sending more traffic than the computer can handle or to send IP ping message. This...