| In the 1960's University facilities with huge mainframe computers, like MIT's artificial intelligence lab, become staging grounds for hackers. At first, "hacker" was a positive term for a person with a mastery of computers who could push programs beyond what they were designed to do. Now, unfortunately the ability to push programs, computers and systems, finding weaknessness and 'back-doors' is more often used with malice, greed, thoughtlessness and irresponsibility. Modern-day hackers are more likely to exploit their skills in a negative or destructive way, often the only benefit to the hacker is the personal qudos of having wreaked havoc, caused damage or at least inconvenience largely to people unknown to the hacker. |
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| What can they do? |
| Pretty much anything they want. Access personal information such as credit card details, user names and passwords, install worms, trojans and other viruses to damage your computer. They can even send email to all your contacts. A DOS or Denial of Service attack is made by one computer sending out huge amounts of data and packets to overload the targeted system. This is a very common threat. |
| Your computer can be used to attack other computers too, once the hacker has access to several computers he can then command them to launch an attack on another system such as a website. This is a DDOS or Distributed Denial of Service attack. The website server is overrun by requests from the attacking computers and it results in an overload. This means that legitimate visitors to the website can't access the site due to the overload. |
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Nobody would want to hack into my computer, would they? |
| If you are secure and are not 'advertising' your weaknesses then probably not, unless you have something worth stealing or destroying on your system and a hacker knows about it. |
| The only way to make your computer completely secure is to turn it off or disconnect it from the Internet. The real issue is how to make your computer 99% secure. An unprotected computer connected to the Internet via broadband (cable, DSL) is like leaving your car running with the doors unlocked and the keys in |
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| Protect yourself |
| Internet security and privacy products provide adequate protection because most "attacks" are impersonal. That is, the attackers are not targeting you or your computer but are scanning for any easy mark connected to the Internet. If you make it difficult for them to find and gain entry to your computer, they will most likely leave you alone. Install firewall software on your computer, especially if your are using a cable connection to the internet. |
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