The Effect Of Computer Vandals

The purpose of this paper is to touch on the issue of Hacking. It will go into detail about the history, evolution, future and prevention of Hacking. In addition, this paper will discuss different types of hackers and their motivation behind hacking. This paper examines the major impact caused by malicious hackers and give modern examples of such attacks. To conclude, it will predict how hacking will be in the near future and give the precautionary measures Information Security professionals can take to mitigate the risk of being victimized.

All operating systems must provide some measure of security to protect the users accounts from unauthorized access. Hacking seems to be the national pastime these days and when this is a national pastime people need to make their computers/accounts more safe. Security warns you of websites which could cause viruses also if the computer has an virus the security system will remove the virus. The most important thing the security protects is information and data that is stored in the computer system.

In Herbert B. Dixon Jr.’s “Is Hacking the New Normal?”, the author is trying to convince the world to pay better attention to the technology in their lives. Dixon is addressing why he believes that the new “normal” is to live in a society where all technology is hacked and vulnerable all the time. Dixon creates the implied message that everything is a target, and should be handled as if it is a primary target of hacker’s attention and time, because it just might be. Dixon’s ideas are backed by statistics given by Peter Katel in his article “Identity Theft”, regarding the number of people that are attacked and how hard the economy is hit by the breach in security. Thus, showing just how many are attacked and giving validity to Dixon’s ideas about sources of information breaches. This source brings to light other sources of potential security breaches, and gives a new perspective regarding just “accepting” this new era. Dixon gives valid ideas on how to increase your safety but ultimately describes that nothing is completely safe.

Aside from the Playstation Outage, there had been larger and more nefarious data breaches in history that exploited weaknesses in internet, server, and network security. One such breach is when Heartland Payment Systems had, what was called, the most massive credit card security breach in history, with hackers embedding deep into Heartland security and recording card data. According to Bloomberg Business, it was estimated that “as many as 100 million cards issued by more than 650 financial services companies may have been compromised”. The attack cost Heartland $12.6 million, which was orchestrated by a man named Albert Gonzalez, who was also the cause for several other data breaches, each costing from thousands to millions of dollars. Another such attack was when Russian, and a Ukrainian, computer hackers assaulted NASDAQ stock exchange servers and stealing “more than 160 million credit and debit card numbers, target more than 800,000 bank accounts” (NY Daily News). Separate hacking operation spanned over seven years, attacking NASDAQ, but also affected “chains like 7-Eleven”. All the operations, in the period of time and the global scale it spanned, resulted “in at least $300 million in losses to companies and individuals”. One of the latest, and possibly the largest, data breaches of 2015, Anthem, the second largest health insurer in the US was hacked, compromising millions of account and personal data, as well as social security. When Anthem discovered that they had been

Together with your approval, I wish to investigate these cyberattacks involving dealing with threats that range between malicious codes, which are referred to as malware and spyware, to computer viruses. All of the threats to computer networks come from the web and they are often intentional, having been manufactured by people with malicious intent. There is a deadline on the report which carries a proposed timeline and budget necessary in order to complete the investigation project. A list of sources has been

When researching major security breaches that companies have endured, the company that really interested me was Home Depot. The company had a sever security breach in 2014, in which over 40 million credit card numbers and 50 million emails were compromised over a five-month period. As mentioned, the breach occurred in 2014 over a course of five-months. During the duration of those five months, an intruder obtained a vendor’s credentials and gained access to the company’s network. The security hack affected individuals who lived in the United States and Canada who had used the personal self-checkout machines at the stores. The impact the breach had on the company was frightful. The amount of repercussions the breach had on the company lasted for a long time. As a result of the breach, many lawsuits arose from whole situation. After the end of the trials, Home Depot paid 8.7 million in legal fees and had a 161 million pre tax expenses that covered the incident.

VII. Hackers have a bad reputation because a select few decide to engage in illegal activities and destroy systems, but the majority of hackers work with the government and corporations to secure critical infrastructure and they also use their talents to invent and advance technology.

Hacking is when the identity thieves or their actors gain unauthorized access to databases or systems to obtain someone’s personal information, or information from and organization (Hedayati, 2012). Sometimes these hackers will take this information and sell it to others so that they may use it. Then the hacker doesn’t have to worry about using the information themselves and it is more secure to just sell stolen information.

Computer viruses are minute program which is “embedded inside an application or within a data file which can copy itself into another program“(Adams et al, 2008 ) for the sole determination of meddling with normal computer operations. The consequences may range from corruption and deletion of data; propagation of virus on to network and deployment through attachments through emails in order to further creating havoc to all associated computing devices.

Computer hacking: Is the practice of modifying computer hardware and software to accomplish a goal outside of the creator’s original purpose. People who engage in computer hacking activities are often called hackers. Since the word “hack” has long been used to describe someone who is incompetent at his/her profession, some hackers claim this term is offensive and fails to give appropriate recognition to their skills. The majority of hackers are technology buffs. They are self-motivated and learning about computers is their true passion. ("What Is Computer Hacking?" WiseGEEK. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 July 2013).

The ethical issues surrounding hacking, stem from several sources mainly dealing with order and control, and information ownership. What is difficult to decipher from all the media hoopla surrounding the terms, "hacker" and "hacking" is both the simultaneous sensationalism and the condemnation of said activities. Of course just recently, even a movie was made and was appropriately called Hackers. The term and all that it implies has truly entered our popular consciousness when Hollywood has made a box office movie on it. As the advancement of computer technologies and systems of information become increasingly more and more complex in today's fast paced modern world and said technologies become an integral

Just like a biological virus, a computer virus is able to infect and ruin lives. This malicious software constitutes more than just simple viruses but also includes other types of software including worms, Trojan horses, and ransomware. Malware has been around since the late 1980’s. Originally, people became hackers to gain notoriety online, but today, it has become more of a business. Cyber attacks originate from all around the world, and it is not just individual people that benefit from it. In two decades, numerous cyber crime syndicates have been created, and states all over the world sponsor hacker groups. Over the past twenty-five years, malware has become less about checking the integrity of computer security and gaining notoriety in the underground cyber society, and it has become more of a chaos creating, money making business that many people and institutions take part in.

Hacking is the process of gaining unauthorized access to information through various means like systems or computers. In the context of computer security, a hacker is that person who looks for weakness in a system so that they can gain access to unauthorized information. They are motivated by various reasons like protest, profits or evaluating the entire system weaknesses.

The fight against hackers and cyber crime is a global problem and nationally and internationally, the threats they caused have been recognized and acknowledged.

Outsider attackers often called hackers because they gain access to system without authorization or permission from the owners or legitimate user. With information technology, comes increase risk of fraud and information theft. Hackers can steel sensitive information from one organization and sell it to a