One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Businesses and the daily Internet users are permanently being advised to protect themselves from unauthorized users on the Internet by employing high security systems. The need for security doesn't seem obvious to the average user, as, for most people, they don't see the point of someone poking around on their computer. They generally assume the only thing of value would be bank details or security numbers. However, in the hacking world, even the most unimportant computer is of value.

There are various different groups or sub-cultures in the hacking industry, which is roughly grouped into three different identities: White hat, Grey hat and Black hat. White hat is also known as the ethnical hacker and is interested in information technology. They tend to focus on securing and improving IT systems, whereas Black hat is concerned with breaking them. The object would be to locate files that contain passwords, find advisories and server vulnerabilities, and create error messages that contain too much information or find pages that contain network or vulnerable data.

The first big media attention to the cyberspace world of hacking was in 1983 in Milwaukee Wisconsin, where a group of boys aged from 16 to 22, hacked into various systems including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Security Pacific Bank and the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. They called themselves the 414's after the area code of their district. Although they got off fairly lightly, they were the reason behind the 6 new computer crime bills introduced that year.

Since then, the world of hacking has grown from serious online damage to just people fooling around. Another example of a fairly well known hack was on the 13 of September 1998 where a group called the HFG (Hacking for Girl132) hijacked the New York Times website, in response to a story they ran.

In these particular cases, the hacker has gone to extremes, but the concerns of this happening to you are fairly small. What is more likely is a hacker using your computer to network to another, or using your information to break into another system, such as your company network. Other security risks that a person should be aware off are Viruses, Computer Worms and Trojan horses.

Generally there has been a lot of discussion and media around Viruses, especially in the early days of the Internet and online applications. They generally damage programs, delete files and can reformat your hard disk. Even mild, harmless ones are able to take up your computer memory, casing your entire system to crash and lose data. The Trojan Horse has a different setup where it just sits on your computer, pretending to be just a normal file, while it installs a back door on the system to allow unauthorized access to remote areas.

The Computer Worm is generally harmless compared to the other two. It uses the network to send copies of itself to other nodes (processing location i.e.: a computer or printer). However there have been some extremes, where simple made Computer Worms have caused huge damages to companies. In 2000, an e-mail was sent round, containing a Computer Worm, that would later on be known as the "I love you Worm". The e-mail once opened would send itself to the user's entire mailing list, so it appeared to come from an acquaintance to the receiver. The attachment was a file called: Love Letter for You. Within hours the e-mail had reached a global level, affecting 10% of all computers and causing $5.5 billion worth of damage.

It's not just companies but everyone that needs to invest in security systems. It's easy to think that in the world wide web with billions of users, networks and companies, you are small fry, but everyone is connected and linked and although you are in essence not much, you could very well be a link or a stepping stone to something that is. In the world of cyberspace, the old saying of "one man's trash is another man's treasure" truly applies.

Celeste writes for Star Internet Business, who specialise in ISP.