Network Security

 

The increasing use of technology has risks for potential hackers to access your personal information.  When you use the internet, you leave electronic footprints that don't just keep a record of your posts but your activities that can be collected, used, or sold for good intentions but mainly bad intentions (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019).  Computers can be vulnerable to attacks, including security holes like distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), password cracking, email scams, and phishing.  Best practices to prevent your computer from vulnerabilities by installing and maintaining up to date antivirus, enabling a firewall to prevent unwanted communications with other devices, regularly scanning your computer for viruses or bugs, update often and install genuine software.   

Phishing Attacks and Password Cracking

 Phishing attacks are usually emails with links that look like emails from businesses or banks, but the link will send you to a site that looks real, but when you put in your information, it saves it.  Phishing attacks can also install malware when you click on the link inside the email (Bhardwaj, Chandok, Bagnawar, Mishra, & Uplaonkar, 2002).  These attacks are hard to catch if you're not paying close attention to small details.  The best way to avoid this is to never click on the link in an email if they are asking you to verify the information and sign into the site from a web browser.  These attacks are typically untraceable unless the malware slows down your computer or the account that you thought you logged into and shows signs of activities you aren't responsible for.  Another way to prevent someone from learning your passwords is to refrain from writing them down or saving them on your computer notes or documents.  Also, avoid having the same password for many accounts because if a hacker cracks one password, they have access to all your accounts.  If a hacker found a way to install spyware and use the information, they found to figure out your passwords.  

DDoS Attack

    In a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), a personal computer or organization's online services are unavailable by flooding the internet traffic from multiple sources (Gaurnag, 2023).  The ping of death is a common (DDoS) attack using the command prompt to send multiple information requests to a computer or server, making it impossible to get information online.  The best way to prevent these types of attacks is to have a firewall software, or hardware that prevents unauthorized communication to other computers on a network (Vahid & Lysecky, 2019). 

Conclusion

    Computers on the internet are connected to everyone by the network and are at risk of many different threats.  Making sure you keep up to date antivirus and firewall software, running scans for viruses and bugs often, keeping software up to date and only genuine software is installed on your computer are best practices to prevent your computer from vulnerabilities.  Also using strong passwords that are changed often, don't use words or names, are not used for multiple sites, and are not written down will protect you from someone finding or figuring out your login information.  Being connected to the network allows access to lots of information and will enable people to track and steal your personal information.  

References:

Bhardwaj, A., Chandok, S. S., Bagnawar, A., Mishra, S., & Uplaonkar, D. (2022). Detection of Cyber Attacks: XSS, SQLI, Phishing Attacks and Detecting Intrusion Using Machine Learning Algorithms. 2022 IEEE Global Conference on Computing, Power and Communication Technologies (GlobConPT), Computing, Power and Communication Technologies (GlobConPT), 2022 IEEE Global Conference On, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/GlobConPT57482.2022.9938367

Chen CL, Lai JL. An Experimental Detection of Distributed Denial of Service Attack in CDX 3 Platform Based on Snort. Sensors (Basel). 2023 Jul 4;23(13):6139. doi: 10.3390/s23136139. PMID: 37447987; PMCID: PMC10346265.

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency. (2022, December 18). 4 Things That You Can Do To Keep Yourself Cyber Safe.  https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/4-things-you-can-do-keep-yourself-cyber-safe

Gaurnag, J., (2023, August 10). Vulnerability management, its impact and threat modeling methodologies.  IBM Security Intelligence. 

Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019). Computing technology for all. zyBooks. Chapter 7 and 8.