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Vast Security Threats to Personal Computers Essay

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There are a vast amount of security threats to a personal computer. These security threats are harmful because if successfully activated an attacker can access personal information and use it for potential harm to you or your computer. These attacks can also potentially slow down your personal computer and may even cause it to crash. When a computer crashes and the information is not backed up somewhere else you won’t be able to retrieve your data. There are techniques that attackers use to access information on your system.
Connecting a personal computer to the internet enables others to use your computer and share your information. All who use the internet should take steps to protect their computer, as well as their private and …show more content…

Worms effect the computers that are on the same network. A worm will consume bandwidth and will spread to other computers on a network. Worms can also cause a server to crash or make a user’s files unusable or corruption. They can also create a backdoor on a target computer. Rootkit will run its utilities on your computer without your knowledge of it even being there, they are designed to avoid detection. A rootkit, like a worm, can also create a backdoor on target computers allowing a hacker to send things such as spam or emails that can use a target computer to perform a denial-of-service attack on servers. A zombies will open a backdoor on an affected computer to allow predators to use it for malicious purposes without the owner’s knowledge. A Browser hijacker has the ability to change a home page or search page in your browser. An email viruse can potentially harm a computer when an effected email is open opened. The mousetrap ping happens when a website uses a script preventing the Internet user from leaving a website. Last but not least, spam comes in the form of an email usually and it’s junk or bulk emails that come from random senders known as spammers.
Attackers also use social engineering to bypass technical defenses. An attacker will persuade a potential victim to release malicious things on their personal computer to benefit themselves. These people tell their victims

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