The Daunting World of Cyber-Crime Threats

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With the number of internet users growing exponentially day after day, a whole electronic community with virtually new rules, standards, history and infrastructure has sprung into existence. Impressive multi-digit distances have never been momentously dwarfed the way they seem today with the help of the cyber network, and the gauntlet of highway milestones could and will, by no means, be run as swiftly as it is done today using the internet. And yet, despite the stupendous stride as well as the spellbinding metamorphosis which have been catalyzed thanks to the worldwide computer network, internet navigation remains a relatively fear-provoking experience, especially that the number of network hackers, crackers, hijackers and cyber-criminals is constantly and incessantly on the rise.

Indeed, like any other system or network, internet is far from being a perfect innovation, for it has got its wide-ranging battery of peculiar loopholes and deficiencies, which many crooked individuals ruthlessly exploit. These imperfections are present all through the network; a demark, as it were, serving as a mere liaison web between different components, namely personal computers, servers, hubs, etc, with different susceptibilities to potential security risks.

Inbuilt defense mechanisms which slot into most operating systems are unfortunately helpless face to the befuddling array of security threats flowing out from the internet. As a matter of fact, thousands and thousands of brand new viruses, Trojans, worms and spy-wares, among other security threats, are rising into prominence every year, thus rendering those fragile defense walls even more vulnerable and ineffective. That’s why it is incumbent upon any cyber surfer, in order to ensure that their privacy should be protected and that their internet activity should not be tracked by others, that they seek to solidify those rudimentary defense systems by affixing a battery of ad hoc software packages.

An anti-virus program is an inextricably vital component of a whole security panoply that is meant to stockade network traffic and to palisade the whole operating system against computer viruses. The latter constantly attempt to puncture unprotected computer systems through those cracks which emerge alongside the flowing in and out of digital information packages. Thus, as you receive bundles of numerical data and signals via the World Wide Web, it is very likely that malicious or unwanted programs may seep through your computer and potentially wreak havoc on your system. Internet downloads, incoming emails, suspected or untrustworthy websites as well as files sent by your correspondent through the ever-propagating Instant Message applications are few among the myriad sources of malicious code generation through the internet. In an ideal world, whichever kind of exchangeable information should be scanned by a reliable anti-virus toolkit in order to deflect potential security risks and ascertain that the internet navigation experience be safe and unflustered.

Yet, many internet users refrain from installing anti-virus software applications on their personal computers for they are likely to render internet exploration cumbersome or perhaps unwieldy. Because anti-virus programs are meant to keep tabs on all executable or consultable files on your hard drive as well as those auxiliary sources of information, they naturally take up substantial volumes of the computer Random Access Memory and, therefore, may conduce to a noticeable deceleration of the whole system performance. Besides, frequent security alerts would show up every now and again in order to solicit the user’s attention to potential security risks, which routine may seem annoying or bothersome for many of us.

Frustrating as it were, however, those intermittent notification alerts are, for the time being, our one and only way of finding out about onslaughts of security threats which are liable to impinge upon our privacy, breach our secrecy and enfeeble our overall control on our personal computers. Indeed, the number of computer viruses is uncontrollably large and the scope of their destructivity is simply unrestrainable that whole encyclopedias wouldn’t sensibly suffice to delimit their full ravaging capabilities. The most benign of all these would simply slacken your system performance, cause particular applications to run at slower rates, add undesirable files, etc. 

    A few messages would occasionally crop up at the instigation of a particular genus of viruses, or perhaps certain applications would boisterously run without previous warning. Even more preoccupying and perilous are those attempts to hamstring the computer system by altering, renaming or mutilating critical system files, thus resulting in notable system destabilization, sudden shutdowns, sporadic data loss and perhaps material damage ranging from hard disk to motherboard failure.

    In sober fact, a wide spectrum of computer viruses is conceived primarily to cause substantial material losses to a number of businesses, financial institutions and monetary organisms, in order to funnel or hijack colossal funds. Unsurprisingly, therefore, a great number of large and reputable corporations reportedly incurred tremendous financial losses over the course of the last two decades, as a result of some surreptitious ingression of malicious codes into their corresponding information systems. Indeed, despite the stringent network security measures which those enterprises implemented with the hope of shielding critical and vital information, hackers would always find a way to jeeringly circumvent those ‘presumably’ impenetrable defense mechanisms without being stymied or even intercepted. In that case, once ensconced inside the system, malignant applications would not only replicate at an incredibly rapid rate (in order to render their removal even more onerous and time-consuming) but also illegitimately gain access into those crucial documents which contain, among other things, access codes of bank accounts, work schedules, financial statements, etc. To put it simply, a whole communication network which is held in leash by a hacker is nothing but a scandalous and unimaginably devastating fiasco for any renowned business.

Delusive emails, in this respect, nowadays constitute en vogue hacking tools which many internet pirates are prone to deploy in the first place, with the intention of bypassing anti-virus software applications. Such is SOBIG (an internet virus)’s modus operandi; a malicious internet code which succeeded in generating huge financial losses reportedly adding up to about 30 billion dollars across the planet: the very moment a targeted victim consents to unsealing the suspicious email, the virus is already set in place. The latter operates exactly the same way a magnet works, i.e. by catalyzing a blizzard of junk mail to pour out into the victim’s email box, thus causing the whole system to acrimoniously bog down.

    On the other hand, albeit seemingly innocuous, junk or spam email may lead to calamitous consequences if ever one lapses into the pitfall of blindly complying with their vivid exhortations. Many of those unsolicited messages tend to use beguiling methods which are meant, in essence, to entice and elicit a positive response from the target. In order to do so, the sender of the presumable message would cloak himself in the garb of a prominent figure or influential tycoon, writing in a very formal (and indeed remarkably eloquent) style so as to coax the reader into replying very swiftly. In those hard economic times particularly, these fraudulent emails would play upon the frustration and despair of their targets by claiming, for instance, that the receiver of the spammed message has won a humongous amount of money in a lottery game (even when the person in question never visited a lottery website or partook of a lottery game whatsoever). I’ve even seen similar emails with ludicrous content, asking the recipient to assist an attorney in transferring a colossal amount of cash (as usual) to some heir whose permanent address happens to be in the recipient’s homeland (of course in return for a very respectable sum of money). Once the bait is taken, other messages would ensue (generally automated messages) requiring the target to send critical personal information, such as a copy of his ID card, passport, bank account statements and identificators, etc. What a tantalized, starry-eyed target can’t realize  however, is that these data are sent to some internet hackers who would use such information to perpetrate various crimes and commit all sorts of violations in the name of their victims. If, providentially, this isn’t the case, senders of these messages would require their correspondents to send some money to conjecturally cover those preliminary tax-related expenses, pending the final transfer (which, needless to mention, will never take place).

    Confessedly, the realm internet security threats is not only limitless, but also extremely unwieldy even for the most consummate masters of the software design and web engineering craft. That’s why, alongside a mandatory internet security toolkit, vigilance is highly recommended to sift through a repository where both rubbish as well as worthy material are huddled together, and to ensure that one’s internet navigation experience be safe, pleasant and unperturbed.