"Who cares !!" said my friend, "If it slows my PC down a bit, I
can live with that. I'm NOT paying some PC nerd £50 / hour to
remove these virus things every month !!", he continued.
We were chatting in my local the other day about computer
security. There had been numerous reports of viruses, worms,
spyware and other malware (Malicious Software) on the news, in
fact there have been reports of these almost every week now. It
has gotten so bad that a US Government agency (US-CERT) has
advised against the use of Internet Explorer (IE)
More here
My friend, being a typical bloke, wanted to change the subject
to more bloke-like things like football and/or women. I guess
he, like most people would regard his PC as just a souped-up
television and would regard a virus infection as just a minor
annoyance with no serious consequences. Well, here is a list of
consequences a computer virus can be responsible for :-
1. Slow down your computer or cause it to crash.
2. Infect other computers on the Internet or your network.
3. Use your PC to launch DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)
attacks on other web sites causing the site to crash and the
owner to lose money.
4. Use your PC to send out yet more spam.
5. Transmit your personal details held on your PC to hackers to
use in identity theft. They can then use your details to take
out loans in YOUR name.
6. Keystroke logging to discover your passwords and use those to
access your bank account.
7. Use your PC to host child pornography web-sites. Could you
explain how those evil photos got on your PC to your wife or the
police ?
If that does not make you worried, it should. Many ISPs
(Internet Service Providers) are becoming under pressure to
block infected computers from their networks until they have
been 'cleansed'.
Back in the pub. ".. and in any case, I haven't got any money
for these hackers to steal anyway !!", he finished, completely
missing the point. I tried to explain to him that if someone
stole his identity, they could get many loans in HIS name and go
on a massive shopping spree " he might not have much money but,
he would have even less by the time the banks could close his
account. And there is a real possibility that his credit rating
would permanently damaged.
Take care out there
About the author:
Pete Blue has been a software developer for many years on
systems like Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, UNIX and even DOS.
www.PJBlue.co.uk
