Personal Security and the Internet Essay Example
Personal Security and the Internet Essay Example

Personal Security and the Internet Essay Example

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  • Pages: 10 (2485 words)
  • Published: March 8, 2017
  • Type: Report
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Computers rule the business world. Through interconnection of various networks, one can easily and readily access the information that he needs, that is, through the Internet. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the Internet as an interconnected system of networks that connects computers around the world via the TCP/IP protocol. It is one of the most convenient and efficient tool discovered to facilitate communication today.

Through it, a lot of people need not go out of their houses, travel to places or spend hours scanning books in the library to be able to get the information that they wanted or go to shopping malls or grocery stores to buy clothes or food for their daily consumption. The Internet helps a person in many ways. Through it, finding long lost friends will not be impossible anymore. The internet serves as a venue to search for

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people, products, or avail the services of other firms and conduct business transactions. The internet also provides jobs to unemployed individuals.

Companies can just post job vacancies or products on the internet and hiring new employees and/or selling and marketing becomes easy, inexpensive and time consuming. The Internet enables people to find their lifetime partners too. Meeting people around the globe through Yahoo Messenger is easy. One need not finish a degree to be able to establish communication to people millions of miles away. Computers and computer programs these days are user friendly and using the keyboard is not at all a problem. Nonprofit organizations also make use and benefit the Internet.

They may solicit or ask donations or sponsorships through electronic mails. Gone are the days of weeks waiting for hard copy mails vi

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the Post Office. Everything can be accessed through the Internet. It is an unlimited, efficient, cheap, time consuming, and entertaining form of communication. The Internet also enables a person to be somebody whom he is not. He can enjoy this virtual identity without being traced by an ordinary user. Role playing gives the person a chance to be somebody he had long wanted to become; this gives him confidence in the process. This is especially true in chat rooms and other “find-a-date” sites.

Internet Crimes and its Implications “Over 580 million people throughout the world actively use the Internet” according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. “This figure escalates daily so that web surfers are spending on average of 13. 02 minutes online six times a week. ” Other studies even showed higher figures to prove that the Internet is definitely increasing its popularity and use and will remain so for years no one can predict. However, the Internet, along with its easy access and convenience, bring forth a lot of disadvantages when the user fails to provide security on its own system.

Internet crime is common and causes too many inconveniences to its users. Hackers behind Internet crimes are everywhere, with different motives and agendas. If safety and updated tools are not installed in your computer, there is a great possibility that your system will be corrupted or compromised while you innocently surf or browse the Internet. Kit Burden and Creole Palmer (2003) define Internet Crime as a crime committed on the internet, using the internet and by means of the internet. Statistics that have been obtained and reported about Internet Crimes seriously threats the business world.

Phishing” emails alone

“produce one billion dollars for their perpetrators” (Dalton 1, 2005). In 2004, an FBI survey showed that 90% of the 500 companies surveyed reported a security breach and 80% of those suffered a financial loss (Fisher 22, 2005). A national statistic in 2003 stated that four billion dollars in credit card fraud are lost each year. Only two percent of card transactions take place over the Internet but fifty percent of the four billion are from the transaction online (Burden and Palmer 5, 2005).

These results in surveys only indicate the seriousness of the problem and so government officials should start taking it seriously before the problem gets worst. The Internet is an efficient communication tool yet a risky one. Along with the easy and convenient features lie the risks that important and confidential information will be lost, stolen, corrupted, misused and/or exploited by some indiscriminate and ruthless hackers and irresponsible Internet users. A hacker may use a person’s password or username without his knowledge.

He will use the person’s identity and system to access vital and confidential information from another person’s or corporate system. Motives may vary depending on the person. It may be for the purpose of stealing other people’s money, for fame, curiosity or for the purpose of challenging or outsmarting another hacker in the scene. More serious attacks can even cause massive destruction, monetary and property loss. Business Week reported in February 2006 that profits from cyber crime were higher than profits from the sale of illegal drugs for the first time in 2005.

Network World Fusion stated in December 13, 2004 that “a spyware program can send corporate data directly from your company’s

client computers to an Internet-based data collection facility, such as a shady adware site or other group of bad guys. ” It also said that “some spyware sends captured data to North Korean intelligence agency servers. The North Korean government analyzes what it captures, sells the data to criminals and organizes international distributed DoS attacks.

South Korea’s defense ministry recently said that North Korea has trained more than 500 computer hackers to wage cyber-warfare against the U. S. The ministry reported that North Korean militant hackers, who have undergone a five-year university course geared toward penetrating the computer systems of the U. S. , South Korea and Japan, are among the best in the world. ” (Wheeler, 2006) Basic Security Concepts There are three basic security concepts: confidentiality, integrity and availability. Confidential information refers to the user’s authentication, authorization and non-repudiation details. When this sensitive information are read and used by unauthorized individuals, loss of confidentiality takes place.

Information considered as confidential includes research data, medical and insurance records or files, loan details from banks and other lending companies, credit card records, structures and plans of newly discovered technological devices, highly sensitive files from government agencies such as FBI and CIA etc. Loss of integrity will result if and when said information are altered, changed, modified or corrupted. Information altered or changed will result to loss of availability. The person can no longer access and will be denied to avail of a particular service in the Internet.

Network security incidents are those that refer to incidents that give negative implications to its users. Security policies are violated; data and confidential information were stolen, lost, modified, altered or changed. This

attack may affect a single person or a group of network users of a particular site or firm. Sources may vary. It may be through a probe or an attempt of an unauthorized person to log or use a user’s unused account to access another computer’s system; through an account and/or root compromise wherein the hacker can access the computer system of the user and run and change their own programs.

The user will eventually be denied to use the service of the Internet or the computer program again. A Packet Sniffer can also be used to steal data or information from a person’s computer system. A Packet Sniffer is a program that captures data from information packets as the user travels over the network (Humphreys, 1999). Hackers may also use malicious codes that when used would cause harm on the computer system of the user. Malicious codes include Trojan horses, viruses and worms. Trojan horses and viruses can infect or harm computer systems to the point of disabling it.

Worms are self-replicating programs or files that spread without human intervention after they are started. These programs definitely harm a computer system and will result to loss of data, denial of service and other threatening security incidents. Internet Vulnerability Encyclopedia Americana defines vulnerability as weakness that a person can exploit to accomplish something that is not authorized or intended as legitimate use of a network or system. When vulnerability of a particular system is exploited, security incidents will certainly occur.

The company’s future, image and credibility will certainly be affected and harmed. The Internet is very vulnerable due to its poor infrastructure designs and poor security network protocols.

Intruders and hackers today are extremely knowledgeable about network topology, operations, and protocols such that access to huge corporate systems becomes an easy and entertaining task. Intruders kept themselves abreast of the newest trend in security systems. Targets of illegal access are often companies or organizations that kept copies of proprietary source code often the key to some popular and widely used software utilities.

This learned information enables these individuals to create or develop their own techniques on how to effectively trace and monitor connections in the Internet. Further, tools that could be use to launch an attack to targeted systems have become more accessible and easy for use by hackers. Importance of a Secured Network or System Based on CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) data and computer abuse in the media, no one in the Internet is immune or spared of the possibilities of being harmed by intruders or hackers.

Business establishments such as banks and other financial agencies harmed by these indiscriminate individuals suffer monetary loss, dignity and integrity. Credit cards and security numbers are sold to black markets and will definitely cause a stain on the company’s image and mistrust of the clients to the company. Affected firms are usually banks, government agencies, hospitals and other laboratories, network service providers and Internet Cafes, and other agencies that use computers and access the Internet.

The consequences of break –in as reported by the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) “cover a broad range of possibilities: loss of time or inability to recover lost files or programs, a decrease in productivity and profits, loss of money or staff-hours, loss of credibility or market opportunity, chance to compete, legal liability, and

even the loss of life. ” (Metchik, 1997). Recently, student hackers broke into the medical record sites at the University of Michigan Health Care System. Records were moved within hours but public confidence faltered as the story spread nationally.

Paul Starr, speaking at the 1999 Massachusetts Health Data Consortium meeting notes that there is a particular variant of these (public) sentiments that he calls "information populism" -- a deep fear of the information-gathering role of big institutions. 3 Security Technology To be able to protect as well as help business firms, government agencies, individuals and organizations secure their systems, technologies have been developed to purposely minimize if not stopped the massive attacks of intruders and hackers in the Internet.

Shad Mortazavi reiterated that the purpose of operational technology is “to maintain and defend the availability of data resources in a secure manner and cryptography, to secure confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of data resources”. Encryption programs can be accessed through the Internet. At http://www. pgp. org, a strong encryption program is available for messaging. By using a "private key" and a "session key", the program will allow a faster performance without loss in security.

Shad Mortazavi further recommended securing the system in three ways: First, the computer owner or the corporate computer system must have a good personal firewall. A firewall is a hardware or software device that will monitor the user’s conversation between his system and that of the Internet. The device will monitor then permit and decide who will be allowed to use the system based on the rules specified by the owner. Firewalls are usually not sophisticated, inexpensive and easy to configure. Second is through the

installation of an Anti-Virus Software.

This tool is can be downloaded free of charge in the Internet. Third and last is the installation of an Intrusion Detection Software. Intrusion Detection software helps track or investigate intruders and then informs the user about these intrusions. All of these programs can also be downloaded free via the Internet. Regular updates however should be made to be able to ensure of the tool’s effectiveness to provide security on the computer system’s files and programs. Security Policy, Procedures and Practices

A policy is a documented plan for organization-wide computer information security which provides a specific framework for making specific decisions and basis for developing secure programming guidelines and procedures for users and systems administrators to follow. (Kit Burden and Creole Palmer, 2003) A security policy usually covers the technical environment of the site, the laws that govern the environment, the authority of the policy and the basic philosophy that should be used when interpreting said policy.

Policies also include risk analysis, threats and cost of asset loss as well as guidelines on how to manage the systems. Policies also include definitions of acceptable use for users and guidelines for reacting to a site compromise. Procedures are those steps that need to be followed based on the computer security policy. Examples of procedures are: how to retrieve programs from the network, how to connect to the site’s system while at home or while traveling etc. Security Practices on the other hand are sets of advices and checklists on how to protect and maintain security of one’s computer system.

These practices include creation of passwords that cannot easily be guessed or copied by intruders or

hackers, use of tools to ensure the integrity of system and being vigilant in network use and configuration. Conclusion The Internet changed the lives of many people. It contributed so much in today’s progress and development. Communication becomes more efficient and accessible. People are well informed because the Internet readily provides information that users can take advantage of. Communication through the Internet is efficient, easy, inexpensive and time consuming apart from entertaining.

The Internet enables people to learn as well as establish relationships, conduct business transactions, and/or buy or sell products. It brought a lot of opportunities to people, government and private agencies, and business and education sectors. However, the Internet is an open ground for massive threats to property and even life. Along with the easy and convenient features lie the risks that important and confidential information will be lost, stolen, corrupted, misused and/or exploited by some indiscriminate and ruthless hackers and irresponsible Internet users. We therefore need to be vigilant and careful in using the Internet.

Security vulnerabilities are increasing every day so that we should take extra precautions in protecting our systems or we will lose instead of gain targeted profits. Professionals should exert more effort in trying to discover tools that would help identify, assess and remediate exposures to said threats. Security means being alert to all possible or potential threats. It is about careful planning on how to protect your system, establish good and effective policies and maintain policies. Although security is quite difficult to maintain, it is indeed most interesting, challenging and most rewarding task of all.

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