Security Threats to the user
In this technologically advanced era, our private data is always under security threat. Cybersecurity threats are increasing day by day and this is the need of the hour to keep cybersecurity concerns in your mind. During the past large amounts of cyber-attack attempts were made. On March 30, 2020, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has received and reviewed more than 1,200 complaints related to COVID-19 scams. Similarly, Phishing Attacks Leverage PDF Attachments and SaaS to Bypass Defenses were made on April 04, 2020. [1]
At the same time, we should have the awareness regarding the security threats facing our computer and data. This article introduces you to the most common security threats to privacy, data, and hardware.
Threats to users
The internet now has provided us with limitless ways for us to spend most of the time on it like work, communication, learning, buying, and interacting with others around the globe. This access to everything that the internet provides has made our privacy vulnerable. Some issues that the user online has to face are discussed below.
Identity theft
It happens when an unknown person imitates you using your name and personal information. If that person gets the right information, the thief can obtain information regarding your bank accounts, mortgages, and other personal information. Some of the methods used by identity thieves are:
- Shoulder surfing – in which the thief can watch someone entering their personal information for private transactions, like while using the ATM machine they can see your information when you are entering.
- Snagging – this happens by recording the information you share with your legitimate agent in a telephone call.
- Dumpster diving – in this technique thieves over-through the user’s trashed data or canceled checks or credit card statements. Through this, they can easily get your personal information.
These are some of the methods, along with these some other techniques are also used by thieves like social engineering or High-tech methods in which they get information using the internet connection.
Loss of privacy
In our daily lives, we use the internet for many little things. Doing online shopping is the most vulnerable. In your view, they only have your name and address but you will be surprised to know that they also maintain your daily life data like in a month for how many times you have bought magazines or purr gas in your car. Most of the organizations, like banks or grocery stores keep your data, they have all your credentials.
Online spying tools
Nowadays the developers have come up with many ways to keep track of your activities online. Many tools have been designed just to keep an eye on the user. Cookies are one of them. It is basically a text file that the browser requests you to keep on your device which has the information regarding your identities like your computer’s IP address, user name, or email.
Web-bugs is also one of them. It is basically a small GIF- format image that is embedded in a web page or can be hidden anywhere in the HTML document. Behind it lies the code that’s function is the same as that of cookies, allowing it to track the user’s activities. Another one is spyware, that basically refers to the software that was made only to track the user’s activities. It basically asks the user to enter their information on downloading a program and saves this information to their data for future use. They record keystrokes, web usage, email addresses, and other personal information. The program is designed that transfers your personal data to the web page.
This article has covered all the basic security threats that computer user has to face. How the online attackers keep an eye on all the activities of the users to access their personal information to breach them.
Also check: Security threats to data
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