Hw5 Word From Cis110

Table of Contents

Identifying Types of Threats 1

How System Security is Compromised 2

Security Devices 2

Summary 2

Works Cited 3

Because so much of our business is today is conducted online, a great deal of personal information is stored in computers. Medical records, tax records, school records, and more are all stored in computer databases. Whether this level of technology in our daily lives is to our advantage or not is a question beyond the scope of this paper. The fact is that our lives are inextricably intertwined with computer systems. This leads us to several important questions:

„« How is information safeguarded?

„« What are the vulnerabilities to these systems?

„« What steps are taken to ensure that these systems and data are safe?

Identifying Types of Threats

Malware is a generic term for software that has a malicious purpose. The three main types of malware are viruses, Trojan horses, and spyware. Trojan horses and viruses are the most widely encountered.

A virus is a small program that replicates and hides itself inside other programs, usually without your knowledge. The most common method for spreading a virus is using an e-mail account to spread the virus to everyone in the address book. Some viruses do not actually harm the system itself, but all of them cause network slowdowns or shutdowns due to the heavy traffic caused by the virus replication.

Electronic Trojan horses work in the same manner as the ancient tale and the city of Troy. The file appears to be harmless, but can secretly download a virus or some other type of Malware onto your computer from within.

Spyware is simply software that literally spies on what you do on your computer. Spyware can be as simple as a cookie ÐŽV a text file that your browser creates and stores on your hard drive. Cookies are downloaded on to your machine by Web sites you visit. That file can enable you to access pages more quickly and save you from having to enter your information multiple times on pages that you visit frequently. However, in order to do this, that file must be read by the Web site; this means that it can also be read by other Web sites. Any data that the file saves can be retrieved by a Web site, so your entire Internet browser history can be tracked.

How System Security is Compromised

Hacking is a term used to describe attacks that breach your systemÐŽ¦s security. Cracking is an appropriate word for intruding onto a system without permission, usually with harmful intentions. Social engineering