The Growing Harm Of Not Teaching Malware

Have you ever wondered about today’s ongoing problem with computer-based threats? There are many online complications today with these new generations forming. Computer viruses, malware, identity theft, online predators, cyber bullying, phishing, and hacking (black hat and white hat) are only a few problems going on online, yet they cause so many problems and threats.

One negative component of computers is that hackers often find methods to penetrate the information barriers. “Homeland security agencies are trying to secure the national computer with programs that target individual computer owners, corporate computer networks, internet service providers, and communications carriers” (Computer Concepts, pg. 51). The main purpose of the program US-CERT is to reduce the vulnerability of computer systems. Hackers usually try to harm computers by placing viruses or worms in them, but the US-CERT program helps reduce the damage of these viruses and worms. US-Cert reduces damage by sending mail to the computer when threats and vulnerabilities are found.

Malware, or “malicious software”, has taken different forms and names for years. Spyware and viruses are just a few of the common titles attributed to this devastating means of cyber attack, the main purpose of which is to ultimately compromise a rival's computer infrastructure. State-sponsored attacks have typically been perpetrated by means of malware. Spear-phishing is one particularly popular means of malware, where by a target is fooled into opening a corrupted email or file, only to unwittingly download a compromising piece of malware onto their computer (XX). Once this malware is installed, control of the computer is placed in the hands of the hacker, allowing them to hack other networks while proving impossible to track down (XX18). China has been a prime culprit for spear-phishing attacks, often following current events to target respective dignitaries. For instance, the 2010 G20 Summit saw thousands of spear-phishing campaigns against officials, with email titles labelled in relation to the Summit itself (XX). Countless departments, institutions, and governments have fallen victim to spear-phishing campaigns, at the count of millions of dollars and priceless information

Over the past twenty years, the Internet’s role in our lives has grown to an everyday necessity. We rely on the Internet to communicate within the scope of our employment and social lives, to conduct our banking and bill paying, we even use it to track our personal property. There is hardly one area of our lives that we can not conduct over the Internet. While the Internet is a convenience that has made our lives easier, it has also opened the door in our lives to a vulnerability that is rapidly being exploited by cyber criminals. Cyber crimes are growing at an exponential rate in the United States and we, the consumers/end users are unaware of the liabilities a simple click on the wrong button can cause. This paper will

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

Adam Segal’s “The Hacked World Order” reveals many prevalent issues in today’s technologically centered society. Starting at Year Zero, June 2012 to June 2013, the battle over cyberspace witnessed world-changing cyberattacks. This was accomplished due to the fact that nearly 75% of the world’s population has easy access to a mobile phone, and the Internet connects nearly 40% of the total human population, which is nearly 2.7 billion people. With that being said, cyberattacks are becoming a more realistic form of terror.

The nature of the cyber threat has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. In the early days of the personal computer, hackers were mostly motivated by the lulz, or laughs. They hacked computer systems just to prove that they could do it or to make a point. One of the very first computer viruses to infect IBM PCs was the Brain virus, created in 1986 by brothers Amjad Farooq Alvi and Basit Farooq, aged 24 and 17, of Lahore, Pakistan. Their virus was intended to be innocuous in nature, to stop others from pirating the software the brothers had spent years developing. Brain worked by infecting the boot sector of a floppy disk as a means of preventing its copying and allowed the brothers to track illegal copies of their own software. The brothers, upset that others were pirating their software without paying for it, included an ominous warning which appeared on infected users screens:

The Most Dangerous Cyber Criminals Of All Time is a article by Luis Fran. This article uses the story of three hacker to describe why cybercrime is a dangerous social issues. Fran repeatedly use the term “hackers”

In the first Presidential debate of 2016, the issue of cybersecurity was a pressing topic. While both candidates did their best to point fingers and place blames on the inadequacy of the government to protect their files, the primary focus on cybersecurity pointed to an intriguing development. The development is that cybersecurity is now a forefront issue in our nation, and a whole host of research and new projects are emerging in the field. Unfortunately, this great interest in cybersecurity has not done much to help the standard computer user, who must deal with notoriously poor protection systems called antiviruses. With the new interest in cyber security, it is in the best interest of corporations and users to reflect on the design of antivirus. Such reflection yields the results

However, there is a significant portion of culprits aiming for secretive intellectual properties, much more than their Eastern European counterparts, whose goal is profit from toxic malwares (Kshetri 2013). Interestingly, Chinese intrinsic hackers hack for some noble causes such as patriotism, political and communal obligations (Kshetri 2013). Typical Chinese perpetrators are overwhelmingly males working individually. They are young amateurs, mostly 17 to 45 years old, with some still in junior high-school. They use toolkits, botnets predisposed online for petty crimes. Contrast to common belief, most don’t receive good education, usually high-school students, unemployed individuals, low-rank employees or manual workers. Group based cyber crimes, on the other hand, are more complicated. These groups are highly specialized, diversely scattered and horizontally organized. They are tailored to specific task-for-hire such as creating botnets or releasing Trojan malwares. Their members are located across China and work as equal with little to none hierarchical order. The interconnectedness and space-time boundlessness of cyber-world help them expand greatly, even passing through sovereign borders with one incident when Chinese hackers attacked the US conglomerate DuPont somewhere between 2009 and 2010. Due to the wild success of online frauds, many traditional criminal organizations have switched to Internet based operations. Some online groups go further and get backed up by legitimate corporates seeking extra profit under the table (Chan & Wang

All indications are that Operation Shady RAT (Remote Access Tool) started in 2006 although it went undetected for several years before begin discovered by analysts at McAfee Incorporated in 2011. Originally it was thought that the tools and techniques used during Operation Shady RAT were highly complex later investigations determined that the exploits used were previously identified and software vendors has published appropriate mitigation procedures to protect computers and networks from unauthorized access. The range of countries and businesses targeted during the operation highlights the importance of proper patching and vulnerability management policies. Operation Shady RAT differed from many other cybercrimes by not specifically targeting computer systems for financial gain; it appears that the perpetrators were after trade secrets and intellectual property. There are differing opinions on the severity and complexity methods used to compromise the computer systems by security vendors McAfee and Kaspersky but those whose information was accessed without proper authorization will attest to the significance of the compromises. There has been no attribution for the perpetrators of Operation RAT.

Malwares are mischievous programs crafted to agitate or forbid normal operations to gather selected information which may lead to loss of privacy through

By the year of 2016, investments in online security are expected to reach $86bn (Contu et al, 2012). Although this might seem a large sum of money, it is considered necessary since there is an increase in online risks from all over the world. Professional hackers develop malware on a global scale and on a 24/7 basis. Hackers have five objectives when spreading malware over the Internet: to infect/distribute, to steal, to persist, to control and for intelligence (Morris, 2010).

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.

Cybercrime has become a fast growing concern for the 21st century as businesses, institutions and individuals grow into an interconnected web of computer networks. Online business transactions, along with the sharing of personal information, are vulnerable to a host of disasters that can reap economic and social havoc. Some sources say that today, cybercrime costs more than $1.0 trillion to society--Global Industry Analysts, Inc. forecasted the world cyber security market to reach $80 billion by 2017 (Gale, 2011).