The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Do you truly believe that your data is safe? You might think so. Unfortunately, there are threats online that keep knocking on your door until you let them in - intentionally or not. Once they are in your computer system, they will cause havoc and may result in you losing all your data.

Therefore, online security has become an enormous concern when surfing the net. And with good reason. These threats to online security may cripple your computer system and halt business activities which means losing precious data and time. Besides that, these threats evolve over time and always find a way to better the security softwares we have installed in our computer systems. Therefore, there is always a need to update security softwares to keep our data safe from these threats.

The following are some of the threats to online security:

Malware


A MALicious softWARE or malware constitutes any software written for malicious reasons that infiltrates a computer without authorization and performs some nefarious function. Malware can come in many varieties and perform a myriad of functions. it is this carefully engineered software that performs attacks on an automated level among millions of compromised machines around the world, that makes it the centerpoint of the modern cybercrime landscape. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, and other malicious and unwanted software.

Botnets


A roBOT NETwork or botnet is a huge number of hijacked Internet computers that have been set up to forward traffic, includig spam and viruses, to other computers on the Internet. The computer is compromised via a Trojan that often works by opening an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel that waits for commands from the person in control of the botnet. The very nature of botnets gives criminals plenty of power on the internet at large. With control over so many compromised systems, herders can now engage in quite more damaging activities than the internet has seen before.

Virus

Computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation. A virus might corrupt or delete data on your computer, use your e-mail program to spread itself to other computers, or even erase everything on your hard disk.

Viruses are most easily spread by attachments in e-mail messages or instant messaging messages. That is why it is essential that you never open e-mail attachments unless you know who it's from and you are expecting it. Viruses can be disguised as attachments of funny images, greeting cards, or audio and video files. Viruses also spread through downloads on the Internet. They can be hidden in illicit software or other files or programs you might download.

Amount of viruses detected by various anti-virus software last year:

vendor	detected	total	percent
AntiVir	26,457,598	28,024,135	94.41%
Avast-Commercial	12,425,965	13,437,873	92.47%
Norman	25,264,055	27,467,379	91.98%
F-Prot6	17,295,119	19,004,580	91.01%
Sophos	3,345,699	3,691,679	90.63%
NOD32	25,329,840	28,024,135	90.39%
AVG7	25,262,433	28,024,135	90.15%
F-Secure	25,148,742	28,024,135	89.74%
Ikarus	9,275,581	10,476,608	88.54%
TrendMicro	11,703,755	13,437,873	87.10%
QuickHeal	10,190,639	11,846,198	86.02%
DrWeb	23,856,884	28,009,899	85.17%
VirusBuster	13,881,573	16,859,499	82.34%
Vexira	13,877,493	16,859,499	82.31%
Clam	12,232,194	15,305,470	79.92%
BitDefender	22,070,962	28,024,135	78.76%
Kaspersky	20,835,947	28,024,135	74.35%
McAfee	12,332,904	16,744,538	73.65%
VBA32	18,326,900	26,958,740	67.98%
Panda	7,661,487	12,300,516	62.29%
G-Data	1,186,992	3,679,871	32.26%

It is shocking to know that our computer system is exposed to these malicious threats. It is of the utmost importance to always have your anti-virus software updated because these threats can adapt to changes and evolve through time.

The following are some ways to keep these threat at bay:

1. Always ensure that the Internet firewall is running. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially intranets. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.
2. Subscribe to industry standard anti-virus software. In the case of a breach in security, these anti-virus software could trap the viruses and alert users of the breach and take the necessary steps to eliminate the viruses.
3. Never open an e-mail attachment from someone you don't know.
   
4. Avoid opening an e-mail attachment from someone you know, unless you know exactly what the attachment is. The sender may be unaware that it contains a virus.

Finally, as the saying goes - prevention is better than cure.