Network Security
System Security Importance
There is a definite need for individuals and organizations when it comes to computers; there will always be someone out there who will be trying to hack someone or a company. The importance of keeping the information in our computers saved has grown over the years. As individuals, we use our computers, tablets, and smartphones for everything. For all of the social media websites we use to our emails, paying our bills, and saving our cards and password information on our phone for easy access, it’s essential to have some security on the devices we use to protect us from potentially hacking our private information. When it comes to business, because certain organizations deal with a lot when it comes to people’s Social Security numbers, personal financial information, medical information etc., it’s crucial to prevent a data breach not only to keep their client’s information safe but to also for the organization to keep a certian trust level and reputation for clients to feel comfortable to do business with them.
Password Cracking
Password cracking has evolved over the years. This method is something hackers use to recover/steal saved data stored in computer systems. In a blog post from Security Intelligence, “In the early 2000s, we had John the Ripper for password cracking. You just needed to compile a good list of dictionaries together, and it would plow through the list of password hashes in a few hours, days or weeks, depending on the hashes that you were attempting to break and how many central processing units (CPUs) to you had. Fast-forward to today’s time there are more ways to crack someone’s Password with the help of AI. According to an article from Linked In AI has a few ways to help make Password Cracking a little easier for hackers, such as Machine Learning Based Attacks and AI-Enhanced Dictionary Attacks. With everything needing a unique password, sometimes we save those passwords in case we forget, which does make our Computers are vulnerable to this type of attack; while it does help to save your Password on your devices, you should also remember to change them every six months or earlier and use different passwords to prevent potential hacks.
Email Spam
Email Spam is something we all see in our emails; its very common I remember when I had my first email account at AOL they didn’t separate email spam from regular mail as most companies do now. Even though now most email providers can tell the difference to help you prevent getting a computer virus, it’s not always guaranteed as some hackers are creating emails that look legit with a company’s letterhead or official logo and fake numbers for you to call so that they can gain access to your personal information. These types of attacks also make our computer vulnerable because if we click on a link that email has it can give hackers access to our personal saved information. In the company I work for if we receive an email from an unknown source, even if it looks legit we are encouraged to send that email to s special fraud box so that they can deal with the spam email and prevent a potential security breach.
Compromising a System
These attacks I mentioned above can compromise a system in various ways. Password hacking is the biggest one, especially for someone who may not be computer savvy; saving your password without changing them frequently can cause a breach into your personal information. While it may be annoying to change passwords, keeping your private information secure is the best safety practice. As far as email spam clicking on something that you have a bad feeling about, even if it looks like a legit email its best just to delete it. once that email has been opened or a link has been clicked, it gives a hacker backdoor access to your bank information, SSN and more.
Protecting Your Computer
There are a few ways to protect your computer from breaches such as Email Spam and password cracking. Regarding Email Spam, in an article from avast, they list different ways to prevent email spam, such as reporting the spam On Google and other email providers, they have a report spam button, you can also block the spam address you don’t know. You can stop spamming from flooding your inbox by chaining your email privacy settings to reduce your exposure to spam. The most common tool would be automatically deleting the spam email to prevent breaches. When looking at different ways to avoid Password cracking a articles from Enzoic provided additional ways to prevent password cracking, such as, having longer passwords, not using personal Information, using different passwords, and Adopting passphrases as a standard. These examples are different tools you can use to protect your Information on the computer from hackers.
Conclusion
Today we use computers to make our lives a little easier. Still, with that, many hackers know we save the most critical information to our computers to access easily which can cause various computer breaches. There are various ways that a computer can be hacked the two I listed above are some that have evolved over the years but there a many ways to prevent those attacks with the many security programs and keeping track of your information and updating passwords, there are many ways to prevent your data being hacked.
References
Lang Company. (2023). Navigating the Evolution of Password Hacking: How AI is Changing The Game https://shorturl.at/cCDIL
ENZOIC Blog.
Domenic Molinaro, A. (2022). Spam Emails: Why Am I Getting So Many and How to Stop Them https://shorturl.at/aqstF (Original work published date)
David Bryan, Dustin Heywood (Director). (2017). The “Cracken”: The Evolution of Password cracking
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