The Threat of Online Security: How Safe Is Our Data?

1:33 PM / Posted by BEN-T1-G3 /

In the world of globalisation, the technology of internet are more widely use among all the generations. Most of the companies has use the internet to share information and make online transactions. Therefore, it is important for the users to aware when browsing through the websites as there are website thats are not safe to use. It is because some website contains malicious program such as computer viruses, worm, trojan horses and spyware.



The most common form of malicious code is computer virus which is a program or a fragment of code that replicates by attaching copies of itself to other programs. There are four main classes of viruses. The first ccategory of viruses consists of file infectors, which imbed themselves into ordinary executable files and attach to other system executables when the file run. It follows by the system or boot-record infectors, which it infect the first sector on a driver from which the operating system is booted-up. These viruses are not as prevalent now because floppy disk are less frequently used now. The third category which is called micro viruses. It infect data files that include scripting "macros" and finally multi-part viruses that are use more than one attack method. The examples of computer viruses are "I LOVE YOU" virus, "Melissa" virus or worm, AutoRun and etc.


The term of Trojan Horse came from a Greek story of the Trojan War. Trojan horse is a destructive progam that masquerades as a benign applications.It do not replicate themselves but they can just be as destructive. One of the insidious type of Trojan horse is a program that claims to rid your computer of viruses but instead introduces viruses onto your computer. Trojan horses are broken down in classification based on how they breach systems and the damage they cause. The types of Trojan Horse are Remote Acess Trojans, Destructive Trojans, Proxy Trojans, FTP Trojans and etc.

Unlike viruses and worms, spyware does not usually self-replicate. Spyware is a type or malware that is installed surreptitiously on personal computers to collect information about users, their computer or browsing habits without their informed consent. It can collect various types of personal information such as Internet surfing habits. Spyware may change the computer settings, resulting in slow connection speed, different homepage and loss of functionality of other program.




In order to prevent computer viruses, Trojan Horses and Spyware, the user must run a quality security software on their computer. There are few recommended solutions for quality security solutions.
First is to get a good anti-virus software such as AVG, Norton Anti Virus and McAffee Anti Virus. It is important to make sure to regularly update your "virus definations" once a week.

Second, install a quality Firewall. There are may firewall that are available such as FREEZoneAlarm. They provide a paid version with extra tools.

Third, install an Anti-Spyware application. There are many Anti-Spyware sofetware available such as Spy sweeper, CounterSpy, Anti Malware and etc.





And lastly, beware of the emails attachments. Do not open email attachment that you are not expecting. Viruses come with some very nasty messages to trick the user into opening the attachments. Besides that, do not open attachment you havent requested, even they appear to be from people that you know.

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