![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The biggest new target for computer hackers is the mobile device. Governments, banks and critical infrastructure can also be brought to a standstill by an expert armed only with a laptop computer and a net connection. There is evidence that unscrupulous experts can also earn serious money from crime syndicates by breaking into computer systems, writing viruses and creating phishing scams.Īnd it is not just ordinary desktop computers that are under threat. And, as money increasingly becomes a digital commodity, the world has seen the emergence of serious computer criminals.Ĭriminal gangs have also started to get in on the action, attracted by the huge quantities of money now spent online every day. Computer crimeĪs the number of computers networks has grown, so have the possibilities for more serious misuse. But “social engineering” – for example, putting a particularly enticing message in an email header to encourage people to open it – and even search engines can also be useful weapons for the hacker. There are many tools in the modern hacking kit, including network scanners, packet sniffers, rootkits and decompilers. They mainly performed innocuous pranks, for example employing low-tech tricks to get free calls through the US phone networks. The earliest “criminal” hackers were in fact relatively harmless, interested in testing the boundaries of their knowledge and their ability to get around security measures. But the phrase has since fallen into disrepute, entering the popular vocabulary as a term for a programmer with criminal intent. The term “computer hacker” was first coined in the 1960s and originally meant someone capable of developing an ingenious solution to a programming problem. The programs are used to serve up unwanted adverts, change system settings and gather information on a user’s online behaviour for marketing purposes. These insidious and clandestine programs typically find their way onto a computer system alongside another, often free, software application, although some can also exploit software bugs to get onto a machine. SpywareĪlong with spam and phishing, spyware represents the third of an unhappy trinity of internet pests. Phishing is especially threatening because it can be used to steal a person’s digital identity. Some genuine sites have even proven vulnerable to software glitches that can be exploited to capture information from regular users. But phishing tricksters are also getting more devious and recent scams pose as customer service emails and send users to bogus banking or commercial websites where they are invited to “re-enter” their account information. The simplest phishing tricks try to dupe a target into sending money as part of a get-rich-quick scheme. This is a con trick that arrives as an email and tries to trick a recipient into handing over money or sensitive personal information like their bank account details or a username and password. Spam’s more sinister cousin is the phishing email. More recently, spim ( spam by instant messenger) and spit ( spam by internet telephony) have joined the fray. To combat computer scientists’ best efforts to stem the tide of junk email, the spammers have had to become more cunning and sophisticated. Once considered a fairly minor problem, spam is rapidly spiralling out of control, and much more than half of all email messages are now thought to consist of unwanted advertising messages. This makes it far more difficult for spam hunters to block the messages at source and catch the culprits. Spammers have also begun using botnets to forward unsolicited bulk email advertising, or spam, through scores of zombie PCs. This involves overloading a server with bogus page requests, so that real messages cannot get through. These groups of remote-controlled “zombies” have been used to extort money from websites, by threatening to crash them with a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. There is evidence that virus writers can earn large amounts of money by leasing access to networks of compromised computers – often referred to as “botnets”. These programs are known as trojan horses. The most successful ones cause serious damage, forcing companies around the globe to close down while infected computers are cleaned up.Ī string of recent specimens have been designed to snatch passwords or credit card information and install programs that can be used to remotely control infected machines. Today’s viral code can contaminate computers at lightning speed, spreading via email, peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and even instant messaging programs. But viruses and worms no longer just provide a way for malevolent hackers to gain notoriety. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |