Hi, just thought to start this topic as e-security is one of the growing concerns for most of us today. Especially if your computer is connected to the internet, the bad news is you may have got a lot to worry about.
Some people tend to argue that although their computers get infected by various kinds of malware, there is nothing of interest for a computer criminal, in their computers. The answer is Yes and… No!
Yes, if you are someone who uses the computer for preparing a small word doc or just checking emails and if you don’t go for serious stuff like internet banking – the attacker would gain very little from the information collected from your computer.
But here’s the deal! The attacker may already know this. Just because you think you don’t have anything to protect on your computer is not a good reason not to stay protected. Today some attackers don’t really care what you have on you computers. They are more interested in compromising as much computers as they can. Why? Ever heard of botnets? noh? wow then you should! read on....
Botnets are a network of compromised computers (zombies). There can be hundreds and thousands of such compromised computers in a botnet. Just imagine the combined computational power and bandwidth of those botnets. Those botnets can be used to launch very successful Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks (DDoS Attacks) against websites. And botnets have a huge demand too. They can be sold or rented by the owner for cyber crimes. And yet you and your computer would have no idea that you have helped make such attacks a huge success!!
Ok let’s take a simple example to understand this concept of botnets. Think of a botnet as a huge army of zombies waiting to receive commands from their master (who in our case is the attacker) and to do the masters bidding. Got the picture?
I think you understand now that the security of your computer should not be considered so lightly. Your computers security may help secure many other computers and websites. But don’t worry. There are many simple ways to ensure enough protection. We just have to be a little bit more aware of the things going on the word of information technology.
On my next article I will post some more stuff about security and some free yet reliable security products for home computer users. Have a fun week!
Image source: http://rationalsecurity.typepad.com/blog/images/2007/06/09/hackers_cartoons.jpg
Pasan Kumara
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