What Are the Dangers of Computer Hackers?

People use the Internet in their everyday lives. With technology advancing as fast as it is, most modern day homes have gone online, turning to the Internet to save time with busy days, performing simple tasks like online banking, purchasing items on eBay or Amazon, even taking college classes online.

1. Significance

   • Computer hackers have been found stealing and selling other people's credit card information in masses. Hacking happens just like any other crime, having both low level attacks like a single person stealing and using your online email accounts, to a more organized structure like a group of hackers attacking a corporate mainframe for large amounts of personal information.

   History

   • In 1982 the first computer virus made itself public; the virus known as Elk Cloner was written by a high school student as a practical joke. Other forms of this virus were spread around, and in 1987 a new virus known as the Lehigh virus was created, the first virus that actually attacked files stored on the computer's hard drive. After the release of Lehigh, viruses became more common and now show up in various different structures with many different goals.

   Types

   • The most common types of computer viruses are resident viruses, which hide within computer RAM files and attack different files moved between the RAM and hardware; direct action viruses, which sit in a certain folder and wait for specific conditions to be met before infecting the files within their folder; and overwrite viruses, which infect folders and slowly delete their content.

   Identification

   • There are a few simple ways to figure out if you have a virus or not. It could be simply that your computer is not acting normal. Another way to determine if you have a virus is to open your processing window and see if there are any unknown programs running. If you have the money, or are unfamiliar with how a computer works, you can always use an antivirus scan to determine if you have any viruses.

   Considerations

   • With all the malicious software out there today it's important to make sure that you're protecting yourself. The Internet offers many free scans to determine if you have any unwanted viruses: Removing that hardware tends to be a little more complicated. There are many antivirus programs out there that you can purchase to patch and remove any viruses that you have acquired, each running at different prices and offering different solutions.