How Secure are you Online
By:Abhijit Debbarma, Category: Technology, Posted on:2009-05-27 08:52:48
Recently a young woman was raped in Delhi allegedly by a guy whom she met in the social networking site 'Facebook'. In another story two men were cheated off more than a lac of rupees in one of the biggest Online frauds in Tripura and there are many other unreported black face of Internet.
But the reality, the world cannot do away with the Internet, which has become essential part of our life and it's activities.
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee would have never thought that his invention of the WWW will lead to the fraud in Tripura or people will misuse the technology worldwide.
Who are these Hackers or Attackers?
They are computer experts who knows the working system of computers and the network flow. They work for personal gain, dispute, revenge, fame etc.
But how these Attackers, Hackers do their job?
First they identify their target, be it human being or company. In the case of Delhi rape the woman met with the guy in the networking site 'Facebook'. After knowing Online for days chatting and scrapping, become friends and when the guy insisted to meet Offline in his residence, the woman was allegedly rape by the guy a Software Engineer.
With the growing popularity of networking website like Orkut, facebook etc, one can find easy target easily. The attackers can know the victims from the profile given, personal information, phone numbers, email address, photos, scrap written, communities involved, friends etc. and come to conclusion and perhaps know you better then you yourself.
Once such case came to light at Bangalore, where a guy received a phone from an unknown person asking for monetary help, claiming to be his best friend's friends.
Everybody loves to share their happy moments with their friends, but Online sharing, think twice, One can easily morph your photo and publish it in unwanted website, causing you harassment. You can also never prevent others from creating your profile with false information.
Theres is no 100% proof of your photo published Online to be secure.
Today with the growing technology, facility like Online Banking, Credit Card, Online money transaction have really become unsafe. One can install Key Loggers in any system in the Cyber Cafe and sit in the comfort of his house and get all the password and username.
Use virtual keyboard if available or copy-paste your password from other place to keep the Attacker guessing.
It is difficult to tackle other well managed attack like the Buffer-Overflow Attack, Denial of Service Attack or more advanced Distributed Denial of Service Attack.
But the most important is that, they cannot be successful without your cooperation, it is the victim that helps self to be victimised. No Virus, Trojan Horse, Key Logger etc. can be in your system unless you yourself activate them in your system.
Virus, Trojan Horse, Key Loggers etc can come in different ways to your system.
Never install unknown program or click unknown link, behind the beauty their can be a beast.
(The writer is a Research Scholar in IIT Guwahati, Dept of CSE)
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