Malware
This paper is intended for either the workplace or the home user. This can be used for educational purposes to help users understand the dangers of downloading different malware and the causes it can have on your work/home computer.
There are many different types of malware on the internet right now and some are worse than others. Some can do very little damage to your computer and others can stop you in your tracks and render your computer useless. I’m going to discuss some of the different types of malware and what they do to your computer and how they work. After that I'm going to talk about how you counteract these issues and also what you can do to prevent these issues from happening in the future. Lastly i'm going to talk about a few personal experiences that I have had and what I have done to resolve the situation.
This paper will also cover one phone scam that is going around right now. There are multiple reasons why I am covering this phone scam. One, its one going around right now and the perpetrators are targeting the non technologically savvy and the elderly. The second reason to cover this phone scam is to show what the perpetrators do if you don’t pay their fees.
The first one that I'm going to talk about is spyware. Spyware is a program that is installed on a person’s computer without their knowledge. What it does is collect information about the individual such as passwords, banking information, and keystrokes. There is another one called a keylogger that also collects keystrokes. Normally a person would get spyware on their computer when they download a program from the internet. Suppose you download AVG free anti-virus during the installation of this program, which is free and a very good anti-virus, it will ask you if you want to accept the terms and conditions and you click next. After that it will go through a series of steps and during the installation it will ask for a custom or basic installation. At this point at the bottom of the installation box you would see another checkbox that is checked. This box is from a third party website and could have a form of spyware associated with it.
Works Cited for: Caplan, Hayley. How to Avoid Cell Phone Identity Theft? What Is Privacy? N.p., 31 July 2012. Web.
the most popular form of phone fraud today. The first step is to gain access to
Fraud, scams and cons are everywhere. They affect many people every day, making this a form of crime likely to affect most people, in some way, during their lifetime. The various types of scams and cons are staggering. A Google search for a list of frauds netted over 1,000 types of schemes, scams, frauds and cons. The simple truth is this: There are people out there with the desire and motive to profit from the misfortune and deception of others. They will use the methods they know to succeed (usually financially) and make a situation profitable for themselves. Some schemes are very simple, while others are incredibly complex; walking a fine line between legal and illegal. We will examine some of the various schemes and scams that have been used in the past and many of which are still used today.
Identity theft is a term used for describing criminal that uses individual’s identity without consent. A common crime of identity theft would be identity fraud. Many of the crimes are regularly connected with money-related issues (Reyns, 2013). With technology being commonly used nowadays we are getting more dependent on it for business, financial, medical, and other forms. As a result this became a target for identity thieves as well. The Internet provides us information and accessibility, but information being stored on the Internet eas...
The malicious software can lock the data in a way that is not difficult for an expert to reverse (Ali 89). Nevertheless, there is a more advanced method that involves the use of cryptoviral extortion to encrypt data and demand a ransom to decrypt the data. In such case, it is difficult for experts to recover files without a decryption key (Ali 89). Ransomware attacks are normally executed using a Trojan or a file that is disguised as an email attachment that seems legitimate to the user. In the last five years, ransomware attackers were able to target multiple computers through the use of a botnet (Ali 88). A botnet enables cyber criminals to attack an entire system by compromising the network. The ability to kidnap multiple systems makes ransomware a significant cyber security threat. The cybercriminals demand ransom in the form digital currencies such as bitcoins and ukash because they are difficult to
Astor, W. (2013). Moldavian man admits to Internet scam. Retrieved December 21, 2013 from http://www.rbj.net/article.asp?aID=203825
The first finding was a medium priority that was a cryptcat.exe file this program can potentially be used to remote access the program. The second finding was a Psh.exe file that was a very high priority it was a Trojan Horse Dropper named Generic4.BVMA, this really do some damage to the system by crashing it or altering it. Thirdly, I found a medium priority that was a astlog.exe file that is develop by NirSoft, the file can be a harmful program Logger.IAC that is an adware software and attackers can misuse this to get your passwords on your system. The fourth malware I found on the scan was a high priority from the Isadump2...
Having first appeared in Russia in 2005, referred as Winlock, that successfully scammed over £10m from unsuspecting victims before the Russian authorities arrested 10 individuals for involvement in such hackings in 2010, however it hasn’t stop the growing number of the problem. With such profitable money to obtain, perpetrators have discovered new ways to spread the malware and to cash-in at the expense of victims.
Computers are main technological features that allow criminals to step into unsuspecting victims lives. With a simple piggy-backing program hackers are able to track every keystroke made by the victim. One such program is called spyware, not to be confused with adware, which is often referred to interchangeably with spyware, but is potentially harmless (Louis 15). Spyware, hidden within downloaded software, implants itself deep within a computer’s hard drive, allowing it to track every move made by the user (Louis 16). Once inside a system, spyware can gather e-mail addresses, passwords, and credit card numbers.
Malicious software in short known as Malware. It is also known as computer Contaminant. Similar to biological parasite, malware also reside in a Host. Malware will get installed on host without user’s consent. Generally a software is considered malware based on the intent of the creator...
Many individuals use the Internet strictly for work, information and entertainment.They do not engage in online criminal activity nor do they readily provide personal information. Cautious about what they do supply, individuals seek security by enabling passwords and secret answers. The Internet may even appear to be safe even though there is little regulation and no legal boundaries. Unfortunately, identity theft on the Internet is simple, straightforward and the victim is generally completely unaware and oblivious to the...
Marshall, KP & Swartwout, N 2006 “Marketing and Internet Professionals' Fiduciary Responsibility: A Perspective on Spyware..” Journal of Internet Commerce, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 109–126. (online EBSCOHOST)
In today’s days malware is designated as a software which aims to disturb a computer with the consent or permission of the owner. This term “Malware” is used by computer professionals to describe a varied forms of destructive, annoying and intrusive software code. This word “Malware” is used to indicate all types of malware which include a true set of viruses.
Cybercrime refers to all forms of crime conducted through a computer or a mobile device using computer networks. It is thus the use of a computer with the aim of intercepting and manipulating content, disrupting communication, stealing or generally destroying others’ information or hardware through a network. Although cybercrime is a worldwide problem and affects both small and big companies, small companies are affected more from the dangers of cybercrime. The rapid advancement in technology is causing tremendous problems to businesses in terms of more sophisticated cyber-attacks. This project is interesting and beneficial because it enlightens one on the dangers of cybercrime, thus preparing individuals to know how to prevent attacks while online, how to reduce the effects of a cyber-attack and how to prevent future
Millions of people around the world use computers and the internet every day. We all use it in school, work even at home, computers have made us life easier, it has brought so many benefits to the society but it has also brought some problems and cybercrimes is one of them. “The times have really changed,” said Greg Garcia, the department’s assistant secretary for cyber security and communications. “We’re seeing now phishing, farming, botnets … war dialing and domain server spoofing. And we’re seeing coordinated cyber-attacks against nation states.” (Fowler 5) Cybercrime is one of the most prevalent and most popular rising crimes being committed today. This is criminal activity done using computers and the Internet. There are millions victims around the world everyday who face these problems. Most people become victims of these at one time or another, but there are ways to avoid or deal with cybercrime by protecting yourself appropriately. I also was one of those victims who faced a similar problem. This unfortunate truth forces me to understand that computers and the Internet have made our lives easier in many ways. However, it is unfortunate that people also use these technologies to take advantage of others through identity theft, hacking attempts, and malicious use of software.