When it comes to technology there is always room for error, whether it be in the code that is providing functionality to a system or from the tasks and operations given to the system by the user. The military has a saying, “You have to be ten percent smarter than your equipment.” The extra ten percent is to cover, and work around, errors that you yourself might make. Anytime errors are made they are almost always called an “operator error”, blaming the incident directly on the person operating the system rather than the system itself. While there is a little wiggle room here, since there is almost always room for improvement in any system, it is not far off. When speaking of computer sabotage we are referring to the disruption, or destruction, of a system by malware. However, unlike electronic break-ins, where hackers gain unauthorized access to a system, computer sabotage almost always occurs due to an “operator error” as the user unknowingly welcomes malware to their own system. Computer sabotage often targets the weakest points of entry into a system and relies on the ignorance of a user to mount an attack, therefore proper training of users and the constant debugging and testing of security measures should be stressed to ensure the highest level of defense from malicious attack.
Firstly, when discussing computer sabotage it is important to follow the actions that led to the incident in order to determine key areas that might be improved. One such incident is the relatively new crypto locker virus, which practically takes a user’s entire system ransom until a sum of money has been paid. Now one might think that this type of incident must warrant some extreme form of attack, when in reality the victims of this attack were sai...
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The use of hacking to identify weaknesses in computer security has become an increasingly controversial issue in recent years. Awareness of this issue is important, because our ever increasing reliance on technology means that breaches in computer security have the potential to have wide-ranging and devastating consequences to society, worldwide. This essay will begin by clearly defining the term ‘hacking’ and will examine the type of people who hack and for what reasons. There will then follow a discussion of the moral argument on hacking before examining a few brief examples. The essay will then conclude by arguing against the use of hacking as a means of identifying weaknesses in computer security.
Multi-platform computer worms are a tool that computer hackers use to infect computers to gain control access. Computer worms are a dangerous virus because they are self-replicating, meaning that they multiply themselves and spread onto other computer networks seeking a lapse in internet security. Computer worms do not need to attach themselves onto an existing computer program to gain access to the victim computer files. The computer worm was created on accident by a Cornell student named Robert Morris; he was seeking a way of managing the internet in 1988. “Morris had no malicious intent, but a bug in his program caused many of the computers the worm landed on to crash. … but worms had come of age and have since evolved into an effective way of attacking systems connected to the internet” (Barwise). Today, hackers use the Morris worm to infect computers. “Five men believed to be responsible for spreading a notorious computer worm on Facebook and other social networks — and pocketing several million dollars from online schemes — are hiding in plain sight in St. Petersburg, Russia …” (Richmond). Since the good intended creation of the worm it has only been used maliciously as a computer virus by money seeking computer hackers such as the Koobface gang in Russia.
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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.
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The history of cybercrime goes back to 1971 and the first computer virus called the Creeper which was created by Bob H. Thomas, who was a BBN engineer (Dalakov, Meltzer, and Phillips). BBN which stands for Bolt, Beranek and Newman, is now Raytheon BBN Technologies (“About”, Dalakov). A computer virus is a program that is created to cause damage to a computer or perform other malicious acts (204). The Creeper virus was designed to infect the ARPANET network. The ARPANET, which stands for Advance Research Projects Agency was set up by the U.S. Government as an agency in 1969 to provide a network of computers that would connect various academic and research organizations; it was the predecessor of the Internet (“Internet”, Morley, and Parker).
In this globalized arena, with the proliferating computer users as well as computer networks, risks associated like Malware attacks are also multiplying. As the proverb
The term “hacker” has been in use since the early 1980’s due to mass media usage to describe computer criminals. The use of this term is vastly used by the general population and most are not aware that there are different meanings to the word. People within the computing community especially within the programming subculture emphasize the use of the term “crackers” for computer security intruders (cyber criminals). Early hackers rarely used their skills for financial gain as a motivation for their criminal behavior in that time cybercrime was infantile and largely seen as a practical joke or game by those who committed it. Bob Thomas created the first credited computer worm n...
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The Art of exploring various security breaches is termed as Hacking.Computer Hackers have been around for so many years. Since the Internet became widely used in the World, We have started to hear more and more about hacking. Only a few Hackers, such as Kevin Mitnick, are well known.In a world of Black and White, it’s easy to describe the typical Hacker. A general outline of a typical Hacker is an Antisocial, Pimple-faced Teenage boy. But the Digital world has many types of Hackers.Hackers are human like the rest of us and are, therefore, unique individuals, so an exact profile is hard to outline.The best broad description of Hackers is that all Hackers aren’t equal. Each Hacker has Motives, Methods and Skills. But some general characteristics can help you understand them. Not all Hackers are Antisocial, PimplefacedTeenagers. Regardless, Hackers are curious about Knowing new things, Brave to take steps and they areoften very Sharp Minded..
Virus is one of the most common malware. Unlike spyware, virus is largely designed to harm useful programs or wreck down an entire operating system. There are many ways through which virus may enter a computer. The most common way is via email attachments. A...
Harvey, Brian."Computer Hacking and Ethics." Ed. Paul Goodman, P.G. Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. U of California, Berkeley, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2014.
Malicious code is a real danger to modern systems. Most systems nowadays do not work in isolation; they are more likely to be connected to other systems and sometimes they can even be dependent on them. Therefore an attack on one of the systems in the network is a potential attacking attempt to any other systems, with which it is interacting. Therefore, it is inevitable for any networked or Internet-connected computers to deal with malicious code attacks at some point. Businesses lose billions of dollars each year because of malicious code attacks. Responding to the attack and restoring all the data on the computers is a time-consuming and expensive task. It is a much better practice to try preventing it through organizing and maintaining effective defenses. However, it is important to keep in mind that there is no one general solution that can help to prevent all the attacks. Attackers are constantly looking for new ways to take advantage of systems’ vulnerabilities and find new ones. That’s why organizations have to not only defend themselves against existing attack methods, but also try to predict and prevent new attacking techniques. It means that computer and network security is a never-ending challenge and expense.
Wee, H. (2014). How The Threat of Cyber Crime is Heightened for Mainstreet . CNBC .