To prevent intruders from accessing your computer system, it is best to install a personal firewall software package. These hackers are constantly scanning home user system for known vulnerabilities. ‘A firewall should isolate your computer from the Internet using a safeguards that inspect each individual “packet” of data as it arrives at either side of the firewall — incoming or outgoing from your computer — to determine whether it should be allowed to pass or be blocked’.
Although with physical security measure and password protection, intruders and hacker can still manage to gain access to your computer system. Important data such as credit card accounts, bank records and medical information should therefore be stored in encrypted format to foil hacker. ‘Encryption is the process of scrambling or hiding information so that is cannot be understood until it is decrypted or deciphered, to change it back to its original form’ (Parson and Oja, 2000, p.419) Encryption can be use in e-mail to prevent unauthorized user to read the content of the mail.
Earlier on we have mention about cookie. If you must fill up personal information on the Internet, make sure that the source provides security measure to protect personal data. Encryption could be use for to store information on cookie.
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As for the e-mail threats, do not open any e-mail attachments before you scan them with an anti-virus software. It is also advisable to let your scanner to scan the letter automatically. Generally, images like gifs and jpegs are safe but attached files from word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and the like can cause trouble.
‘Never run a program unless you know it to be authored by a person or company that you trust. Also, don’t send programs of unknown origin to your friends or coworkers simply because they are amusing — they might contain a Trojan horse program.’
It is also best to disable hidden filename extension on your computer. Some of the virus comes in an unknown file extension. Another prevention is to turn off your computer or disconnect the Internet connection when not using. That way, a intruder cannot access your computer when the power is off and disconnected from the Internet.
As for the mobile code such as ActiveX, Java and JavaScript, it is best to disable all scripting languages on your web browser. With the option disable, the vulnerability attacks of your computer will be low. However, turning off these option will limit the interaction between your browser and the web site as some web site use scripts and this can degrade the functionality of these sites. E-mail application also uses the same code as web browser. Therefore, it is also best to disable the option in the e-mail application to avoid these attacks.
Keep in mind to make regular backups of critical data because you never know the capability of a virus or attacks. Backup files can be kept on removable media such as ZIP disk or CD-ROM disk. Remember, you must create this disk before you have a security event.’
With the wide usage of the computer on the Internet, it is clearly that computer is vulnerable to many types of attacks as most users and programs are anonymous. Although security measure is taken to prevent such attack, it is virtually impossible to keep these attack from happening. However, with the advance technology invented each day, it can be say that computer security would be more powerful and less vulnerable to these attacks in the future.
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