The Threat of online security: How Safety is our data?

The used of internet has become fundamental in our daily life. It has been widely used in different networks such as education, business and banking as well as government networks. However, organization continuously exposes to the threat of online security. The threat of online security that organizations face was different and it will lead to substantial financial losses for the organization.

Nowadays,people often face with problem that their personal data is being accessed by unauthorized user. Hence,now we have to know that there are two types of attacks which are called non technical and technical. The word non technical attack is defined as an attack that is a collection of techniques to manipulate someone to perform an action or revealing private information that compromise a network or computer. Social engineering is examples of non technical attack whereby the hacker make use of human weaknesses to influence people provide confidential information rather than invest their time to break the access control system. Phishing is an example of social engineering attack whereby email users will receive fraudulent email that requires he or she provide their password or any other private information to update their personal account data. In fact, it is a technique used by social engineer to private information.Those are examples of non technical attack which is one of the threat of online security which will harm personal confidential data.

Below is an example of fraudulent email:

On the other hand, technical attack is defined as attack that using software and system knowledge to gain access to private information. The most common types of technical attack include the virus, worm and Trojan Horse.

Virus is a program that attaches itself to a legitimate program to penetrate the operating system and destroy application program, data files and the operating system itself. Virus has the ability to spread throughout the host system and on the other systems before perpetrating its destructive acts. Personal computer always encounter with virus penetration. This is particularly when connecting in a network where the infected personal computer can upload the virus to the host system. Subsequently, the virus will spread throughout the operating system and to other user. Virus will be spreading via email attachment, downloading free program from the internet and so on.

Besides, Worm is a software program that hides into the computer memory and replicate itself into different area memory. Worms is different from Virus because it can be replicated systematically without transfer as part of host. Other than that , Trojan Horse is also an example of technical attack. It is a program that aims to obtain the IDs and passwords from private users. It able mimic normal log on procedures of the operating system. Trojan Horse will save a copy of those confidential data in a secret file when the users entering their IDs and password. Ultimately, Trojan Horse’s author can access to the system by using those IDs and password. Worm and Trojan horse are also another ways where confidential data will be hacked by the unauthorized user.

As a conclusion, there is substantial number of threat of online security and users’ data has become less safety as a result of advancement in technology. Therefore, proper safeguard like firewall and antivirus software should be used in order to encounter with the risk of online security.

References:

http://www.bsagovernment.com/downloads/MajorOnlineThreats.pdf